#also the z is their choice not mine i would just like point out

[touchlikethesun]

"i don't like atyd because it's too americanized," aka how to tell someone you've never been to england before in your life...

[timeregistry]

A Human's Touch (p.AI.nter x Reader) | Chapter 1

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Masterlist

Notes: This is a cross-post from AO3! Some of my readers wanted it on Tumblr so here I am! I have not posted writing in a REALLY LONG time on Tumblr so if there is any way that I can make the formatting better PLEASE hmu!

“Hah! As if I would talk to you!”

You pressed your lips into a fine line, a sigh escaping your lips. You sat on a chair in front of the one and only Z-779, in other words, the_p.AI.nter who you simply called Painter in your notes. You tapped your pen rapidly on your notebook.

It was always times like these where you somewhat wished that the subject you would be talking to would simply not be coherent enough that you can skip the whole “talking” process. Or even be extremely coherent and willing to talk so you could breeze through.

However this “supercomputer” wasn’t at all interested in talking to you.

The other scientists insisted that the only time that you could only really talk to Painter near the “end” of the day was when it would be early, Painter would be too busy mining crypto. You never knew that there would be a whole computer just to mine crypto, you thought the craze ended years ago…

So much for making it easier, Painter kept ignoring you or even telling rude things. Such as insulting your fashion sense.

Painter’s screen occasionally glitched, its face appearing for a split second grinning only to turn into something more deadpan.

You sighed briefly, thinking back to its file wondering if there was anything that you could use yet coming back completely blank.

“... You really don’t want to tell me how you’re doing?” You tried again.

Silence.

“Do you like working with Urbanshade?”

Silence again.

“Do you miss your life before Urbanshade?”

Bingo.

You didn’t get a response but instead a reaction, it was a good start.

That was your “nuclear” question, the one question that always worked to get a reaction to anyone that you could communicate with. And it was your job to see their reaction.

However what you didn’t expect was seeing more pop-ups on Painter’s screen, opening a lot more tabs of work, as if it was trying to mine even more crypto (if that was even possible).

“Hey, what are you doing?”

You quickly wrote down what was happening, approaching the computer as it suddenly overclocked, shutting down. Trying to wake up the computer you attempted to find its power switch only to pull your hand away quickly thanks to the severe overheating the computer suffered through.

“Hey-”

“Step away from the computer.” You heard the intercom go, your shoulders slacked slightly. “Z-779 has overclocked its systems, it is best you return tomorrow.”

You almost wanted to protest, you wanted to know what happened to the computer to react in such a way.

Without much choice you stepped out of the room that held Painter, nodding at the researchers that were overseeing the experiment as you went straight to your office.

Even if your day was technically done (and cut short) you wanted to attempt to write down more questions for Painter. That and also wanting to find out what exactly happened to it.

“Jeez~ I thought you were never going to get out of there.” Raiding the community kitchen was Sebastian in his “mechanic” uniform, which just looked like a brown version of the prisoner uniform. He only had the coat on with a couple of belts with bags around his body and tail.

After a while of working at Urbanshade, he became like your personal assistant with research, which was why Urbanshade just let you have him around (and in turn, let him be in places he originally wasn’t supposed to be at). In the end however, he was just one of the subjects that the Blacksite housed but ultimately your responsibility.

You’re sure your co-workers are not going to be happy that he’s out there stealing their food.

“It was actually quicker than I normally take.” You looked over at your watch checking the time as if to prove yourself a point, you were definitely extremely early compared to other times. Even with the Painter just ignoring you which made you need to be patient, it was fast.

…Not as fast as the time you had to study Pandemonium though.

Sebastian hummed in response, biting into a ham sandwich he found. You’re 100% sure that was one of your co-worker’s lunches. He always liked pissing them off, snickering when he would hear them complain about their missing lunch at a distance.

“Who was it this time?”

“Z-779, the computer painter.” You replied, putting a hand on your chin. You still don’t know why it got overclocked.

“Ohhhh yeah, I remember reading the document.” Sebastian wiped his hands on his shirt to remove any stray crumbs, he always ate so fast when it came to normal foods that would be filling for you. You wondered if his DNA change also changed his metabolism. “Was that computer too busy mining crypto to give you attention? Thought that fad died a year ago.”

“That’s what I thought!” You exclaimed, putting a hand on your head. “Why would Urbanshade be constantly mining a currency that is constantly losing value?!”

Sebastian only snickered in response. “Right.” He put an arm on the fridge, leaning on it. “But I’m sure that isn’t the reason you’re frustrated right now, hm?”

You shook your head, your confusion of Urbanshade and crypto completely throwing away your focus. “No. Of course not.”

“Then?”

Pausing, you pondered slightly. Theories start to float in your brain. “Well, the computer completely went into overdrive when I was there.”

That seemed to raise an eyebrow for Sebastian. “Did it fry some circuits or something?”

“They didn’t let me check.” You sighed, shaking your head again. The feeling of the boiling metal still tingles your hand slightly. You’re surprised it didn’t burn you.

Sebastian only crossed his arms, now he was thinking to himself. Perhaps it was because he actually worked with electronics and circuits that he was actually thinking his own theories. Not like he was a computer wiz or anything… maybe.

It was only after a bit where Sebastian narrows his eyes at you. “Wait, what exactly did you ask the computer?”

“The typical questions.” You started telling him the usual questions you ask all subjects. He knew them too well as not only was he asked them multiple times but also sometimes would visit when you would be doing your own interrogations (much to your co-workers chagrin).

“Yeah but did you ask that question?”

“Which one?”

“The stupid one.”

You pondered for a bit. “Do you mean the whole… ‘missing your life before Urbanshade’..?”

Sebastian straightened his body, his third arm leaning on the counter. His expression was serious which only made you realise that question was the one he was talking about.

“Well-”

“No! What’s wrong with you? I told you to stop asking that stupid ass question!” Sebastian almost launched at you in full force before you saw him hold back slightly. It didn’t change the strength he used when grabbing ahold of your shoulders though as he shook you slightly. “Are you stupid or something?!”

It was rare for you to see Sebastian frowning at you, he normally was angry at everyone but you but you can feel the frustration on him.

“That computer wasn’t answering my questions!”

“So you pull the big ‘no-no’ question?!”

You sighed slightly, already feeling defeated once more. “...yeah.”

Sebastian only shook you again. “Here’s hoping you get your brain cells again Doctor.” He used your title as his voice sounded strained. His voice went down into a whisper. “None of us like this, Urbanshade took everything from us. What makes you think that’s a good fucking question?!”

You can tell he was getting agitated, even his lure was flickering slightly. Putting a hand on his arm (that was still shaking you), you looked up at him. “I know I know, I’m sorry.” You sighed again, looking down. “I won’t do it again.”

You felt like a child being chastised by their mother.

“You better not.” Sebastian let you go, pointing a finger at you. “Again.”

“I’m sorry really.” You sighed, putting a hand on your forehead. “The computer just wouldn’t talk to me at all, it was getting frustrating.”

It was a long day and only being able to talk with the computer at the end after just analysing another one earlier in the day was something. Even worse was how said computer only answered you with insults.

“There are better questions.” Sebastian put a hand on his hip. “I thought you knew this.”

“It’s a computer.”

“A computer with fee-lings.” Sebastian used two of his hands as if to emphasise his words, elongating the last word as if to prove a point. “It’s literally in its document.”

“Yeah but-”

“No buts”

You sighed, he was right. You were completely out of your game right now. You’ve dealt with worse subjects, apparently the crypto-mining computer just got on your nerves too much.

Sebastian opened the fridge again taking out someone else's lunch. “You know what, let’s go to your office and read the computer’s documents again, refresh your brain, and write down better questions.” He slithered his way to you, putting one of his hands on your shoulder. “Can’t believe I need to help you do your own job.”

He went in front of you, and you knew that what he said was more like a command over a suggestion. Sometimes you wondered if he was more like your boss over the subject that you oversee.

You caught up to him quickly as he slithered slower so as to not make you run to be able to match his speed. After you were beside him he gave you part of the lunch he stole.

“In the files, they mentioned how that computer wasn’t only taken away from their owner, but, and get this, was promised to go back to see the surface if it mines enough crypto.” Sebastian started, side eyeing you a little bit as you reached your office. You opened the door with your ID. “In other words, that computer misses its life before Urbanshade. Do you understand where I’m going?”

You already knew that your question wasn’t the smartest, but it made the machine react which had to be some good result for research.

Without waiting much for your response, Sebastian continued, easily finding the Painter’s file. “The computer already overclocks just thinking about the possibility of it, wanting to go back to painting so badly. I wouldn’t be surprised if the exact reason it overheated and shut down when you were there was because you mentioned the place it exactly wants to get to and made it just want to work faster to get there again.”

You sat down on your chair. A sigh escaping your lips as everything was indeed starting to make sense. Even if you were in psychology, you felt so severely underqualified to deal with the behaviour of so many inhuman subjects.

An artificially intelligent computer was completely different from the other subjects you’ve studied this whole time. So it was always nice to hear Sebastian’s point of view on these things, sometimes you would be completely blocked mentally if it wasn’t for him.

You opened your notebook as Sebastian slid the Painter’s document over to you.

You stretched your fingers. “Alright, let’s start thinking outside of the box.”

[disquiet-dream]

that reminds me to say:

I think the most annoying thing about the discourse a bit ago was people acting like it was Literally Slavery to say maybe doctors shouldn't be given free choice to do whatever and should instead, even under communism, be told to make a bare minimum amount of insulin

and then also going "you don't need go force people to do that, they'll do it out of the goodness of their hearts" as some kind of counter point

because. ok. if you believe they'll do it anyway what's the fucking problem??? nobody's being forced into anything if they were alresdy going to do it!

like, at that point - and I know this isn't an original observation - you're making it clear your injection isn't to "forced labor" in the sense of like, an actual bad thing. it's literally just an opposition to "people might be told what to do sometimes".

because that's the scenario here, right? we agree (because I do agree with the idea!) that people will probably WANT their to be enough insulin to keep diebetic people alive, so nobody's being forced at gunpoint into the fuckin insulin mines. any sort of state direction would literally be just "hey, you have to make X amount of Y, Z and W medicines or you, idk, lose funding", and there's nothing to be mad about there!

like, yeah it's not totally free choice but like... come on. who cares. don't be a libertarian.

[kamiimiya]

TEEHEE 1, 3, 5, and 7 with kokonoi hajime >:D

THANK YOU LOVEBUG I APPRECIATE YOU SOSOSOSO MUCH ♡

ask game here

♡ If you have one, what's your ship name?

kokomiya !! just a silly basic little shipname cuz those are the ones i'm used to in most fandoms and i'm simply not creative enough to think of something unique and funny.

i honestly like the tag misconceptions more than i do the ship name, because i Thought about that for a little while even though its kinda basic so it doesn't even really seem like i did much thinking. but for a long time we didn't like each other, he thought i was wayyy too nice and just going to be used by everyone around me ( deadass projecting but go off koko dearest ) and i couldn't understand why he has such a grudge against me. we understand each other a little bit too well in some regards, despite each of us being on the opposite ends of The Horrors. sometimes he mentions that i would understand inupi more than i understand him, and he just doesn't understand why i'd choose someone like him when it's so obvious that he had the capability to hurt others. he's so blinded by his lack of self worth and inability to truly understand other people's depths that there's just a lot of miscommunication between the two of us for a really long time.

♡ What song would you duet for some chaotic late night karaoke?

umbrella by rihanna. is it because of that one scene with inupi where koko was hiding behind the umbrella and trying his best to act confident even when he was losing it a little bit ? yeah. maybe. who cares. it's also a BITCHING song and you can't look me in the eyes and tell me he doesn't know it by heart. and to be very clear, i'm not saying he's gonna be jay z and i'm rihanna. we alternate lines like how god intended. i will step out of the spotlight this one time and let him have the last little bit with the last few lines because i feel like he needs them a little bit. maybe it would do his psyche some good who knows.

in the tune of rihanna, also s&m is a very good choice. my minds eye can see him swaying his hips and doing a little dance and dammit he's feeling himself. gonna do that silly debby ryan thing where he pushes his hair behind his ears trying to be hot but its kokonoi hajime so it just works idk how to explain it. first verse is his and he'll sing it alone, i'll just sing the background vocals. we alternate the lines of the chorus & sing the post chorus ' come on, come on, come on ' part together at the same time. second verse is mine. if you see him blushing at the mention of whips and chains no for the love of god you do not.

♡ If you were dogs, what breeds would you be?

so he's definitely going to be something like a doodle or a golden doodle. something that looks pretty but actually may not be the best pets. i lived in a house with golden doodles and let me tell you they were wild and rowdy if not trained right and also practically impossible to kennel train at any point in time, and maybe it was just the dogs that the person had but they had the worst separation anxiety i've ever seen in dogs, and that's pretty much just koko. if you look at them from a distance you think that they're pretty and fancy looking and then you spend more than a minute in the same room with them and you realize that they're actually a handful, and i love koko for that.

for myself, i don't really have an in depth answer. i like pomeranians and also i too have a bark wayyy bigger than my entire bodyweight. they're like 3 apples tall and mostly fur, and have one of those super annoying barks that just simply don't shut up ever, and i'd like to think that's me going on and on and on about stuff that no one objectively really cares about. they're also extroverted but can get aggressive with dogs much bigger than their own size. and yeah that honestly just checks out with me i will body check a dog 4x my size because i don't like the way that it didn't look at me.

♡ Describe how your f/o smells, be absurdly specific.

oh boy he's expensive but also depressed. you can tell he's having one of those days where he just can't be half assed with anything because the cologne he wears will be sprayed so much that you can't smell anything else. he chooses savage from dior because it's one of those colognes that covers up everything else with just a little bit sprayed, but he'll still overspray it to the point it almost chokes you with the scent of it. if he's not wearing any cologne ( rare, but not impossible. i just have to catch him at the right time ) he probably smells like a mix between his lotion he wears and his body wash / exfoliant. he shops at bath and body works for lotions because he likes the deals and also has a thing for their candles.

if he's out doing ' business ' i think honestly he sweats wayyy more than he likes to let on especially since most uniforms are a jacket of some kind and they're actively fighting most of the time, so he has to use a pretty strong deodorant to hide it. definitely carries deodorant with him and he's so shameless about it. he definitely hops into the shower the moment he's home though.

sometimes, though, he smells like blood and a housefire, with the smell of smoke so thoroughly coated in his hair and blood underneath his fingernails, and i can't mention it because it's really not the important part going on right now. sometimes i just gotta pull him into the shower and wash his hair for him really well and fix dinner for him without mentioning it. tears or worried words from either one of us may break the fragile thread hanging on and it's just not worth it. i know he's okay, he knows that he's safe. it's,,, important that the nights we're together stay as normal for him as possible, especially on nights like those.

and anyways so i - ( gets shot )

[awriternamedart]

IM REWORKING THIS

So on the bird app, I decided to give every character in Honkai Star Rail a Splatoon 3 weapon based on their personality and a bit of their playstyle in HSR, and the result was a long ass thread that Im gonna just copy here for the people of Tumblr to enjoy.

These are all my own opinion based on my.. several hundred hours of Splatoon experience + character playstyle and personality (as stated above) and I disregarded the weapons state in the meta mostly and went with casual Turf War! Enjoy the merging of my two brainrots.

(if I missed someone lemme know - and Im going off current playable characters + pompom)

-

Astral Express Crew

Trailblazers would play Dark Tetra/Light Tetras Duelies! Specifically, I think Stelle would play Light Tetras and Caelus would play Dark Tetras!

Now you might be thinking March 7th plays TriStringer, but that doesnt seem right to me? I think she would play a Brella, and get really freakin good at it to! Personally Im leaning towards her using the regular Splat Brella !

Dan Heng is kinda difficult for me to pinpoint, but honestly I see him playing N-Zap '85? He seems like someone who just enjoys painting the map and giving March and the trailblazers a TON of Tacticoolers so they can constantly throw themselves into the Turf War.

Himeko would play a Charger. But not just any charger, she plays the Z+F Splatterscope WITH the scope. She just feels like someone who would be a menace with aiming.

Mr Welt Yang is another hard one for me to pinpoint, but he feels like a Splatling person? I know people are gonna say he would be a Splattershot JR cause hes old, but hear me out- He would go INSANE with the Zink Mini Splatling.

PomPom plays Splattershot Nova. Im sorry Im just right.

-

Herta Space Station / Genius Society

Herta herself definitely plays E-Liter 4K. Not the scope version, the basic version. It fits her too well Im sorry-

Asta feels like a Slosher player not gonna lie- Im feelin like a Sloshing Machine Deco? Trizooka and Point Sensor both suit her to so Im going with that.

-

Arlan definitely plays Splat Duelies or Splatana Stamper, I cant quite settle on which one? Im leaning towards Splat Duelies right now though-

Belobog

Bronya definitely also plays a Charger, but she plays the Snipewriter 5H! Cmon, its got Tacticooler, and its a cool weapon IMO. Just suits her personality cause you have to be super strategic with playing it!

Gepard is another difficult one- But ultimately Im landing on the Sorella Tenta Brella. Big shield, super protective and stally playstyle with Trizooka and Ink Mine- It just works!

Serval on the other hand DEFINITELY plays Splatana Wiper. And shes frickin GOOD at it.

Sampo plays a duelie I think, and honestly I see him playing the Glooga Duelies! Maybe its cause their blue and he also duelwields his blade dagger things but you get the point.

Natasha uses Heavy Edit Splatling. Do I even have to explain this one? Tacticooler and its a Splatling. It just makes sense.

Im sorry but Hook absolutely uses Flingza Roller. She would LOVE the Roller class and think Tenta Missles are hilarious.

Clara! Sweet Clara, she uses the Custom Splattershot Jr, and mostly just likes to paint up turf for her team!

Seele feels like another Splatana enjoyer. Spatana Stamper feels right, but I can be easily swayed if I find something else that suits her.

Lynx, Lynx, Lynx. Dapple Duelies. Fast, mobile, has Tacticooler and Beakons, and when she Turfs with Gepard and Serval their a menace on the field together.

Pela uses Custom Jet Squelcher! She seems like someone who would enjoy the far range and annoying people with Toxic Mist and Ink Storm. A menace on Undertow Spillway, probably.

Luka also probably uses a Duelie? He feels like a Duelie Squelcher person! (hey, thats my weapon of choice!) Its long distance but still gets into skirmishes and fights pretty often!

-

Xianzhou Luofu

Jing Yuan is honestly pretty easy- Cmon, he plays Splattershot Jr, the starting weapon. He picked it up and just never changed off it, and honestly its a really good choice so it works out nicely.

Sushang- Cmon, you know she plays Splatana Stamper. Zipcaster? Burst Bomb? She goes insane with it.

Tingyun is probably the hardest of the Luofu to place- But ultimately I think Im gonna go to Rapid Blaster Pro. I cant really explain why? It just fits IMO

Luocha feels like another NZap user, specifically the '89 one, but I can also see an argument for Nautilus 47.

Yukong plays the Inkline Tristringer! Our first bow character with a bow! Its a far back, support like weapon that honestly feels like the best pick for her!

Bailu definitely plays a support weapon but she constantly throws herself into the Turf War over and over. So Im saying she likes to use the Big Swig Express!

Yanqing plays the Splatana Wiper Deco! Beakon, Tenta Missles, and its a sword-like weapon. It just fits him.

Qingque feels like someone who would play Bloblobber. Its a gamble on a splat, and its a fairly good painting weapon as well!

Fu Xuan is another kinda interesting one to place, but Im gonna go with the .96 Gal Deco. Its got Ink Wall and Kraken Royale which both just go super hard and are strategic in their nature!

-

Stellaron Hunters

Silver Wolf ADHERES to the Competetive meta. She played Splash-o-matic AND Ballpoint, but probably prefers Splash-o-matic.

Kafka... the idea of her using Undercover Brella is funny, but I think ultimately she uses Painbrush. I also cant really explain this one but it makes sense to me.

Blade uses a feeder weapon without a DOUBT. He likely uses the feeder weapon, Dark Tetra Duelies, but also dabbles in other ones like Carbon Roller Deco.

-

and thats it for now- im gonna go draw or write hsr characters as inkling and octolings now byee

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Omg yeah x/y was honestly such a good era I loved mega evolutions (wtf happened to them?? Like we just got different renditions in the form of z moves and gigantamaxing ?? I forgot what it’s called but when they blow up the pokemon in a giant ass stadium LMAO) but I do miss mega evolution…I also haven’t played any of the switch games shdgsh I was meaning to but didn’t have enough time (or motivation oops) I completely forgot about greninja he most definitely has one….bonus points if it has that giant water shuriken like the ash greninja LMAO I can imagine Karasu collecting all the token bird pokemon too HAHA like talonflame, staraptor, etc.

LMAOO Kira was honestly a good choice I just remember being like this is such a rare find?? HAHA so glad I stumbled upon peregrine and found you too <3

Honestly I think it’s just because kiyora got thrown in with like no info no backstory and no dialogue…I’m glad we’re getting more of him in epinagi where they can actually focus more on him so we can see more of what he’s like because as of right now I’m just like…I barely know you dude LOL besides the fact that you’re a middle child…manifesting tabieita return so hard please come back my glorious kings I need your goofy little duo back!!!!!!! I also wanna know who’s saying Karasu won’t make it like??? There’s no way anyone from top6 BLLK isn’t making it tbh I feel like that’d be too big of a jump but clearly they aren’t reading because he really IS carrying pxg on his back like….hard carry. Shidou hasn’t done anything beyond the first goal Charles called it quits for awhile and Rin wasn’t able to do much either like Karasus always pressing Kaiser and Isagi and keeping up let’s be real there’s no way he won’t make it :| Also narratively I don’t think it’d really make sense for him to get dropped out either if anything I think the people most in danger are the people currently not in the top 23…? Or benched players like who’s making those assumptions now…..tabieita is for sure passing (also I feel like it’s especially because otoya is like 1 of 2 people doing anything on barcha from bllk so they’re bound to also get enough bids from barcha or other clubs I feel..) but yeah er I don’t even fully remember who else is on barcha from bllk haha…

JUST FINISHED READING AND OH. MY. GOSH. THAT WAS AMAZING??? I had sm fun reading it I was smiling at my phone and actually laughing. I’m CRYING Otoya and bestie getting shipped??? That’s hilarious esp how he like ends up cock blocking her attempts to get close to the others like Reo??? Peak comedy I ate that UP!!! And SHSJSBDH KARASU REUNION THAT WAS SO CUTE and honestly fit them so well with the banter too!!! I can only imagine how the aquarium date would go….imagine either he falls into the touch pool or at least gets splashed somehow and flips out LMFAOO

I LIVE for this journey of a story truly keeping the Karasu community alive and kicking I feel like this just added a millions years to my lifespan like I’ve been revived and rejuvenated thank you very much. Also Chigiris sister!!! Omg I love that we end up forming a little bestie group with her and yukis gf too!!! Girlbosses fr!!!!

Also the Karasu Y/n adopting Hiori agenda SO REAL IM SO ON BOARD HAHA I’m crying he fr is just their kid like it’s so funny and makes sm sense too….i lost it with the u20 match invites though like we really got the invite instead of his parents LMFAOOO the way you write him makes him so squishy too I just wanna squeeze him like the hamster he is idc if he’s 6 foot

But anyways I’m honestly running out of words to say because my vocabulary isn’t extensive enough to praise this as much as it deserves THANK YOU SO MUCH SHSGSHS I was never expecting a request of mine to your event to have led to something like this!!! So glad to have been able to chat with you as well as follow along with this story (I’m definitely going to go reread the entire series from start to finish at least three times)

Take care of yourself and I’m looking forward to whatever you put out next!!!! Can’t wait to ramble and chat more about karasu (or really even anything LOL) To more Karasu filled BLLK moments and writing masterpieces o7

- Karasu anon

YES i loved mega evolutions but everything after that felt like it was trying too hard to be gimmicky…i’m in the same boat i’ve played all of the 3ds games and a few of the ds ones but none of the switch ones. LMAOO i bet he missed the event to get the special ash greninja because he was on a date or smth so he had to pay nagi/hiori to give him theirs or hack his game so he could get it 😭 KARASU’S TEAM IS DEF 5 RANDOM BIRD POKÉMON + GARCHOMP I FEEL IT IN MY BONES he’s sooo garchomp coded somehow…maybe talonflame staraptor honchkrow skarmory and pidgeot?? idk though. i’ve considered writing a pokémon au before i think it would be so fun hehe but who knows

i will SCROUNGEEE wikis to find the most random characters for my fics…either that or i’ll jump straight to ocs. i think i tend to use canon characters at all costs for male characters and ocs for female characters because lbr most animangas have very very few female characters let alone well written ones (shoutout anri only female character in bllk fr) so i just make my own

YES i agree kiyora just randomly appeared and gave us a backstory and then passed…honestly i think i’d have been more interested if we didn’t know much abt his backstory until AFTER he passed to kaiser but it seems like he’ll be important for the rest of the match so i’m sure we’ll get more information on him soon

AGREED like people are saying NAGI isn’t going to start on the world cup team?? please be sooo fr he’s shown time and time again that he’s capable of insane chemical reactions w almost any player he 100% is starting. tabieitaken also are definitely going to be there even if they don’t start (i think of the three karasu has the best chance at starting just because we don’t see many other players playing in his position whereas chigiri, bachira, etc could be wingers instead of yuki/otoya)…yeah literally besides bachira and otoya barcha is a bunch of randoms 😭 i need these people to focus their worries on like nanase and zantetsu HAHA. personally i’m 10x more scared for zantetsu than karasu 🙁 i don’t want him to be kicked out of bllk we need more himbo rep in anime

OMG YAYYY I’M GLAD YOU LIKED IT!! help otoya and bestie hating one another but accidentally cockblocking each other for the entire fic was SOO fun to write 😭 poor bestie she just wanted a rich man but she’s stuck w otoya’s ninja ass. i think my fav moment of theirs was when he won her the plushie but instead of being romantic it actually furthers their enmity 😔 the bllk fans in-universe know what’s up!! otoya x bestie AND karasu x y/n…taste fr. lowkey poor bestie because not only is she single af and enemies with a guy who pretends to be a ninja in public, her OWN bff is in the most perfect relationship ever 😭💔 karasu invented boyfriendism like he’s so HDKDHDSJ in this fic!!!

it truly was such a journey 🥹 YES i needed there to be more female characters plus i thought it would be so funny if y/n is just going around adopting bllk characters…like hyoma’s HER brother now too wdym 🙄 she needs to meet rin ong i think she would cure him (and bestie needs to meet sae i think she would humble him so bad). i know for a FACT that the girlies of fwtkac groupchat is probably sooo fun. like bestie just spams otoya slander (she finds entire twitter threads dogging on him and makes up bs to get him cancelled online), y/n sends edits of everyone (especially otoya x bestie ship edits because she finds them hilarious), chigiri’s sister keeps trying to convince them to visit her in tokyo, and yuki’s gf is the designated hype girl 🥹

LMAOAOAO karasu w hiori is like the quintessential dad who DID NOT want to get a puppy but somehow he loves the dog the most and feeds it 5 million treats a day 😭 y/n and karasu truly are the parents that stepped up 😪 but also LMAOAOA no i thought it was so funny like imagine hiori knowing that karasu is probably going to invite his gf and being like “ya i’m going to invite your gf too” it’s like that one reddit meme where the guy says “if i could sleep w anyone in history i’d choose my wife who passed away” and some random dude says “i’d choose your dead wife too” HAHAAH but not romantic because hiori is just her little squishy child fr

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH i also did not expect an event request would get to be this extensive but i enjoyed it so much!! i’m hoping to work on my hiori requests so tentatively those will be next but we’ll see how things go hehe. and i look forward to many more conversations and ramblings in the future!!

bonus: karasu texting otoya after his aquarium date (screenshotted from an insta post i saw earlier LMAOOO)

[liugeaux]

Linkin Park’s Papercuts: A Track-by-Track Breakdown

A week ago Linkin Park dropped their first "Greatest Hits" collection, or as it's branded "Singles Collection 2000–2023". I have much to say about it and I need to put my feelings out into the world. Let's go!

First things first, LP is one of my favorite artists so there was really no way to screw this up. The criticisms I'll throw out during this piece are more preferential issues I have with the collection. As a whole, this is a hugely welcomed release that puts most of the songs you want to hear all in one place. We needed this 5 years ago.

With that said, if I were in charge, there would be some changes I would have suggested before sending this to manufacturing.

I'm going to break this down track by track, critiquing placement, inclusion, omissions, etc. If I were grading this entire package I'd probably give it a 8 out of 10 and that score is coming from a VERY nit-picky place.

LP chose to go with a custom track listing, rather than the popular chronological order. The latter is a convenient choice that leaves bands not needing to make a decision on what songs should be grouped together. Chronologically also presents the collection as a biography or story, telling the history of the band in a logical order.

If a band chooses to curate a tracklisting for their Greatest Hits they really need to "get it right" for the package to be more compelling than a standard chronological release and I don't know if they do. There's an art to constructing a tracklist just like there's an art to building a live setlist.

That's enough preamble, let's get to the nitty-gritty.

Tracks

1. "Crawling" from Hybrid Theory

"Crawling" has never been a favorite of mine. It's one of the weakest tracks on Hybrid Theory and is a bad song to kick off this collection. The track should definitely be included, but the back half would have been a much better home for it.

2. "Faint" from Meteora

A perfect song in the perfect position, "Faint" batting second gets the blood flowing as the biggest hits should be rolling in. No editorial notes on this one.

3. "Numb/Encore" from (mashup with Jay-Z) Collision Course

The whole Collision Course project was a cool gimmick in 2004, but "Numb/Encore" hasn't aged well, and including a Jay-Z collab this early in the tracklisting is a misfire. If they must include it, the back half is the right place. If we're going with novelty tracks I'd prefer "Pts.OF.Athrty" from Reanimation and even it shouldn't be in the #3 slot. #3 should be an iconic hit. Also, two versions of "Numb" in one collection is tacky, imo.

4. "Papercut" from Hybrid Theory

THIS is your track #1! It kicked off the Hybrid Theory album, is the namesake of this very collection, and would've set the proper tone for what is to follow. Just swapping the track placement of "Crawling" and "Papercut" would make a HUGE difference in the overall package.

5. "Breaking the Habit" from Meteora

At this point, we're 5 tracks into this thing and we've got nothing from Minutes to Midnight, ew. "Breaking the Habit" is a fantastic song and a fan favorite, but it is both a later track on Metora and a later released single from the album. I would have put this one in the final cluster of songs. If you swap its placement with "Leave Out All the Rest" you solve two problems.

6. "In the End" from Hybrid Theory

As one of LP's biggest hits, the #6 slot seems a bit dubious. I'd rather see it at or around #3, but I guess it's fine here.

7. "Bleed It Out" from Minutes to Midnight

As previously stated, there should have been some Minutes to Midnight representation before now. I like "Bleed It Out", I'd rather this include "Shadow of the Day" or "Given Up", but I understand "Bleed" is the bigger hit and more representative of the album as a whole. Ultimately I think "What I've Done" should have been here.

8. "Somewhere I Belong" from Meteora

Perfect placement for this song, but if I were to vote a Meteora song out to be replaced by something from say ... The Hunting Party ... this one would be on the chopping block.

9. "Waiting for the End" from A Thousand Suns

This is one of my favorites and as the lone representative from A Thousand Suns, Track 9 feels right. No notes.

10. "Castle of Glass" from Living Things

Living Things, as an album, is kind of a mess, and I've never loved "Castle of Glass". This should have been omitted in favor of "Guilty All the Same" or one of the missing Minutes to Midnight songs. On a 20-song collection, this being in the 10 spot is a misrepresentation of the collection itself.

11. "One More Light" from One More Light

This song holds a precious spot in my heart and while it 1000% belongs in this collection, I can't even begin to say where in the tracklist it should go. One More Light is such a weird and exciting album it's almost a shame the title track is the only one that ever gets attention, with the obvious reason for that being devastatingly sad.

12. "Burn It Down" from Living Things

This should be the only Living Things track on here and #12 seems to be low enough. No further notes.

13. "What I've Done" from Minutes to Midnight

Track 13? Really? This might be the biggest WTF placement on here. Outside of "Numb" and "In the End", "What I've Done" is THE LP anthem. It's the song that should play during the trailer of the LP biopic. It's a great uniter of a track. 13 is whack. It should be in the first 5, without a doubt.

14. "QWERTY" from LP Underground 6.0

"QWERTY" isn't necessary here. It doesn't fit the theme of the overall package, and it was never a "hit" song. It IS, however, a fan-favorite that's never found its way to official streaming platforms, so while it may be the black sheep, it's welcome to steal a slot. For you fans that might have never heard it before, enjoy!

15. "One Step Closer" from Hybrid Theory

I guess you've got to save at least one big hit for the end of the compilation, and I guess "One Step Closer" is a fine one to fill that role, but this really feels like the slot "Crawling" should be occupying.

16. "New Divide" from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Finally, "New Divide" is on an official LP release and a singles collection is the perfect place for it. It may be a bit too low on the tracklist, but it works here just fine.

17. "Leave Out All the Rest" from Minutes to Midnight

As one of LP's best songs, leaving out "Leave Out All the Rest" would have been a cardinal sin, but since its popularity is nowhere near the bigger hits, number 17 is a fine pace for it.

18. "Lost" from Meteora20

It's good to see even the recent success of "Lost" is being highlighted. No notes.

19. "Numb" from Meteora

It's simple, "Numb" should be last. I get "Friendly Fire" is new and the new stuff on releases like this is usually either first or last, but "Numb" should be the exception. It should be last.

20. "Friendly Fire" from Previously Unreleased

"Friendly Fire" is a great track and its tone lines up nicely with the One More Light album (for which it was originally written). My only note is informed by my love for that album. This track should have been held for an anniversary or special edition of One More Light. I know it's presumptuous to assume anyone wants a deluxe edition of one of their least popular albums, but any extra attention we can throw its way would make me happy.

Total length: 67:57

I'm sure by now someone is jumping into the comments to argue with me and honestly don't care about your opinions. No energy will be wasted fighting over stuff this dumb. What I WILL address though is logistics. With the re-emergence of vinyl as a dominant distribution platform, tracklistings can't be as freeform as they were 20 years ago on Compact Disc.

Your basic CD holds about 80 minutes of music. This collection fits on one disc and easily slots into the few remaining CD shelves at your local Walmarts and Targets. If CD was still the dominant platform, LP and Warner might have shoved 3 more tracks on it to better represent the catalog.

Vinyl is not as forgiving. Sure, since each sind of a 12" record is holds about 20 minutes, a full 80 minutes is still in play, but since their are 3 forced record-flip moments, song length is a huge factor in the final tracklisting.

I've seen weirdness on vinyl releases that specifically address this problem. Like, I've seen the vinyl versions of albums have different track orders to accommodate the 20-minute sides, I've seen mostly empty sides on records, but most egregiously, when blink-182 re-released their 2003 self-titled album on vinyl, Side D was completely blank.

This next section is me trying to build a tracklist that meets my needs as a picky fan-boy, but still fits on the 4 - 20 min sides of 2 vinyl records. Here we go.

Side A - 17:03

"Papercut" 3:05

"Faint" 2:42

"In the End" 3:36

"What I've Done" 3:25

"One More Light" 4:15

Side B - 17:15

"One Step Closer" 2:37

"Bleed It Out" 2:44

"Somewhere I Belong" 3:34

"Waiting for the End" 3:51

"New Divide" 4:29

Side C - 17:42

"Leave Out All the Rest" 3:29

"Burn It Down" 3:50

"Crawling" 3:29

"Pts.OF.Athrty" 3:38

"Breaking the Habit" 3:16

Side D - 17:00

"Shadow of the Day" 4:16

"QWERTY" 3:22

"Lost" 3:19

"Friendly Fire" 2:56

"Numb" 3:07

Well, I thought that would be harder. With most LP tracks being 3-4 minutes in length, the re-arraignment was super modular. All four sides of the records have room to spare. If I really wanted to be a jerk I'd load one or two sides up with short songs to allow the addition of a couple more tracks. Instead, I decided 20 is a nice round number and 5 tracks per side looks good on packaging.

I swapped out "Castle of Glass" and "Numb/Encore" with "Shadow of the Day" and "Pts.OF.Athrty" and it makes the whole thing feel better. I wanted to include something from The Hunting Party, but the best track "All or Nothing" wasn't a single, and the best single "Guilty All the Same" is almost 6 minutes long. Also, after listening to it again, The Hunting Party is not a great representation of the band's best work. I feel comfortable leaving it out completely.

The newer/non-single tracks are bunched up towards the end because that's how it should be and as stated above "Numb" is now last. THIS is a 10/10 collection. I could go deeper and put together a Digital Deluxe collection, or I could throw out all industry standards and rebuild both records with the maximum physical limitation of 25 minutes per side, but that would be overkill (he says after typing 1900 words). Imagine the songs I could put on this baby if given an additional 20 minutes to work with.

Last note, the name of the release is Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000–2023), a fine name, but why include the years? Doing so suggests more is to come. Also, technically, "Friendly Fire" was a single this year so shouldn't it be 2000-2024? Jay Gordon of the band Orgy recently let slip that Linkin Park has a new female singer, but this news has not been corroborated. Is Papercuts simply the end of the Chester era? Is the band working on new music or a tour with a new singer? Is the reason this collection's name stops at 2023 because they plan on releasing more music later this year? Why am I able to come up with so many seemingly justifiable questions from what should be a straightforward Greatest Hits package?

Let me wrap this nonsense up, I'm starting to sound unhinged.

Go listen to Papercuts!

Cheers!

[taiblogcomics]

Locket Up and Throw Away the Key

Hey there, big leafers. We're past the halfway point on Avengers Undercover by now, so it can only be downhill from here, I'm sure! Let's just get into it~

Here's the cover:

It's all about Deathlocket today, huh? My big criticism of her design? The eyes. If you're gonna give someone a robot eye, give them one that focuses in the same direction as their real eye. Coz, like, she looks weirdly wall-eyed to me with that big traffic reflector she's got in her eyesocket. I dunno why it works for Cyborg and not for her. Otherwise, the main complain is, like, it's been seven years, time to kill of Captain America again, right~? Except we know they won't, because this isn't an event comic. Can't kill a name-brand hero like Cap in some random comic. (Some Z-list teen heroes, though, totally fair game.)

Also, what an amazingly useless quote by ComicBookResources. "It's not about who they're fighting, it's who they'll become." Yeah, no shit. That is called character progression, it's basic writing. If I slapped that on an issue of Teen Titans or a volume of My Hero Academia, or, hell, one of the Critical Role prequel comics, would it make any difference? Like, I know these are all quote-mined from a larger interview or statement, but this one seems like such a basic thing to say, why even bother to share it as a quote, y'know~? It sure is the quote of all time.

So, where are we at present? Our non-marketable survivors of Child Murder Island got recruited by the Masters of Evil and managed to kill their tormentor. Faced with the very bad choice of "become supervillain" or "do not pass go, do not collect $200", our protagonists chose the secret third option of "maybe we take them down from the inside". This is an amazing plan that can't possibly fail and not at all a bad decision inside a worse decision. Oh, and Cammi tried to not make bad decisions, getting herself caught by Constrictor instead. How much of any of that will play out today remains to be seen, since Deathlocket wasn't even included in the secret bad decisions~

So we open with Deathlocket saying "Shooting people is so much fun!" You know, just to set the tone. You ever been go-karting? Imagine that, but crossed with Mad Max. That's basically what Deathlocket and her new friends in the Young Masters of Evil are doing. Live ammunition and all. I mean, it's very much the kind of stuff kids would do to screw around (as evidenced by Chase Stein also being here), but you add the supervillainy and that first line (and, you know, the live weapon fire), and it just comes across way worse than it should.

Locket and Excavator (the shovel-wielding teen Wrecking Crew member, in case you forgot) finish first as usual, and Excavator's all ready to go again, but Locket and Chase peel off to go get pizza. Chase doesn't get what she likes about Excavator, and she breaks it down as "I like him for the same reasons people like you". He replies "Ouch", but it's fair. He tries to get her alone so he can let her in on the terrible inside-job plan, but suddenly an alert goes off, and Constrictor scrambles his team of evil teens. And since they joined up, this included the both of them.

They go up in their plane, not even being told what their mission is (Excavator comments they usually figure it out once they hit the ground), and we get more of Deathlocket's narration boxes. Really, she finds Excavator endearing because he's more genuine about calling her "badass" and treats her like a person first instead of a weapon. Very different than her last friendship with ol' Apex. They land in what seems to be an A.I.M. base and start raising hell. AIM are also douchey villains, so, like, there's no winning side here.

A lot of this is a fight scene, so not a lot for me to say. Hate describing fight scenes. Locket starts getting the hang of fighting, with the worrying internal thought of "This is easy!" when she kills a guy with her cannon. Again, these are rank-and-file AIM goons, so no big loss and I'm not too broken up about our heroes doing a violence on them (especially to maintain their cover), but that's a worrying thought regardless of who she's up against. As they get set to head inside the base, though, Locket spots an Avengers Quinjet bearing down on the scene, and that's gonna be trouble.

The jet lands, and Captain America himself jumps out. As if you hadn't guessed this from the cover. I think he missed the actual fight, and is taking it slow to look around the place. He's clearly here for some other reason (mentions something about a "transfer"), not in response to what they're doing. Just bad timing, I guess. Anyway, the cover scenario. Deathlocket has a bead on Cap and jokes to Excavator that she could totally snipe him from here. And that's where it gets serious: he's not joking about it, and insists she has to do so.

As he literally yells "take the shot!", Chase dives in and knocks her aside enough to make the shot go wide, blasting Cap over but not headshotting him. Chase is outed, but I approve of his moral compass still being intact. Excavator immediately goes for him, but nobody's scared of a scrawny guy carrying a shovel and Chase blasts him with his fire gauntlets. Excavator runs off screaming, completely on fire. With the threat over for the moment, Chase takes a moment to let Locket in on the terrible secret plan.

Deathlocket is naturally a bit skeptical. Everyone should be, the plan is barely a plan. It's a good idea, but it's not a good plan, if that makes sense. And of course, she had no idea about any plans. Chase replies it's been a little hard to get her alone lately, she's spent so much of it buddying up with Shovel Boy. Speaking of, he suddenly appears behind Chase and begins whacking him with his shovel. Despite being just set on fire, his hair and skin are undamaged, and his costume is just a little ragged.

The two of them start going at it, and Deathlocket is desperate to break up the fight. I don't even know where Cap is, or any of the other guys they came in with. I assume the other villains are all inside, but did Cap get knocked out, or…? Not addressed. Either way, though, in her desperation Locket fires a big shot from her cannon at the two idiot bros fighting over her, and the comic ends with Chase lying on his back in a pool of blood. Once again, I'd probably be concerned if I wasn't from the future, having read future Runaways comics where he's still alive~

Hey, I guess I was right when I said it'd be downhill because, boy, this issue sure isn't great! I think it's meant to characterise Deathlocket, but it doesn't really characterise her as anything more than a dumbass. "Wow, it's so cool to be out here and shooting at people in go-karts because my father always said goofing off was bad, but goofing off is fun actually!" I mean, I guess I can't blame a teenager for kind of crushing on another and listening to her hormones, but I dunno if I can excuse the "all girls want bad boys" trope when the bad boy in question is Excavator, the Amazing Shovel Lad. Just have some better taste in the supervills you crush on, that's all I'm asking. Not gonna blame her for shooting Chase either, that was clearly done in a panic moment. Speaking of, though, on the complete opposite end, we have Chase, who may be a meathead who just jeopardised a plan that hasn't even worked itself out yet, but I can't fault his heroic heart. If anyone would blow their cover to save Captain America, it'd be Chase. So I guess everyone's off the hook. Heroism or hormones, sometimes you gotta let folks be dumbasses. ...So maybe this issue wasn't so bad after all. But that doesn't mean I like it either~

[spacecadetomoly]

Matsuno Family Diary! Part 2: Karamatsu Laments (Unofficial English Translation)

The following is an unofficial English translation of an official short story released online for members of the official Osomatsu-san fan club. If you want to read the original Japanese version of the story or enjoy the other things the fan club offers it’s members please consider joining: https://osomatsusan-fc.com/ In the room of the Matsuno family sextuplets there is a notebook hidden away behind a bookshelf. This notebook exists so that the brothers may, should they so choose, express the deep feelings and profound thoughts which weigh upon their hearts and minds so heavily that they can no longer be contained. It seems that today someone’s hand is once again turning the pages….

November 18th 2021, Karamatsu

Suddenly*, I have one older brother and four younger brothers to take care of. I’ve never resented this hardship. As the head of the Matsuno family it’s only natural for me to take care of everyone. Alas, however….I am gutted. Even I, whose heart is wider than the sea and taller than the mountains, have things that I cannot stand. For Example: Eight days ago, ‘twas I who threw the crumpled tissue that had fallen to the floor near the edge of the room into the trash. Six days ago, ‘twas I who searched for and the found the TV remote that had been misplaced and put it back where it belonged. Four days ago, ‘twas I who laid out the futon for everyone. ‘Twas I who turned out the lights. On the day M A Z A** was gone, ‘twas I who who washed out the slime at the bottom of the barley tea I had finished drinking and made new barely tea. ‘Twas I who crushed the empty candy boxes, put the liquor cans into garbage bags, and hung my leather jacket back on the hanger after it slipped to the floor! …………I don’t mind. It's no big deal for me to do these many things, truly. But honestly it pisses me off. I'm so annoyed. Who could have known that I, who is considered P A―F E C T O by my B R A Z A S would have such a big problem? No, no one needs to know. Heroes cry alone and in secret. I actually do a lot of work when I’m out of sight and no one is watching, and I would never brag about it but I’m really smart and witty. I also don’t agree that I’m being “obnoxious” just for humming a poem while playing guitar, but I don't care about any of that! Not even a word of thanks, eh? I've never once received a “thank you” or heard anyone ask “Did Karamatsu do this?” I'm not doing any of this because I want someone to praise me! But I also think that it would be nice if there were people who noticed a little! …… Huh. Well, that's fine. Today, once again, I’ll be the only one protecting the peace of the world Baby! P.S. The porno book thing? It wasn't me.***

Translator's notes:

*Please note that the decision to start this entry off with “Suddenly” was Karamatsu’s choice and not mine. I mean, he didn’t ‘suddenly’ gain an older brother and four younger brothers, he’s had them his whole life! And it’s not as if anything’s happened to his parents….Anyway, I considered leaving it out of the translation because it being there makes no sense, but as far as I can tell it not making sense may have been the point because a lot of the passage is like that? I dunno, Karamatsu talks weird and this entry was written weirdly so if you have trouble reading it blame him not me. **Karamatsu uses English words a few times, written out in all caps using roman letters, but he doesn’t seem to actually know how to spell these English words so he writes them out phonetically based on how he talks. He does that here with M A Z A (mother) and then two more times latter on with B R A Z A S (brothers) and P A―F E C T O (perfecto). ***This is a reference to the mysterious porno book that Osomatsu wrote about in the last entry. Karamatsu claims he didn’t take it, can he be trusted? Part of me wants to mock Karamatsu for clearly wanting to be praised (despite his claims to the contrary) for doing basic household chores. However, this would be hypocritical of me because I also long for praise whenever I do basic household chores. Today, ‘twas I who did laundry, dishes, vacuumed, cleaned the cats litter box, made my bed, and cooked myself chicken and rice for lunch….where are my complaints for being so responsible and industrious?! I demand accolades! Up next: It’s Christmas time with Jyushimatsu!

[hellofeanor]

Fëanorian Quenya

Hey friends! Do you like elves? Do you like the Silmarillion? Do you like Fëanor and co? And most of all, do you like spending hours thinking about minor details pertaining to made-up languages??? If so, boy do I have a treat for you! Let’s delve into the weird world of Fëanorian Quenya and explore some history and mechanics of why they talk Like That.

I’ve seen a lot of posts joking about the Fëanorian lisp, which is about as funny as a joke about a speech impediment can be. 👍 It’s important to understand, though, that this IS a joke. No, they didn’t really speak with a lisp. Yes, they did pronounce some S sounds as TH. That’s the critical disclaimer here: SOME. It’s not a blanket pronunciation. There’s a lot of background research that goes into determining which words would be pronounced with S and which would be TH, and that’s what we’re going to look at.

So if this is something you’ve come across in fandom and you’re not totally sure on the details, or if you ARE sure and just want some more in-depth info, read on.

The stuff probably everybody knows already

For anyone who’s been hanging around the Fëanorian corner of the Silm fandom for more than three minutes, there’s about a 100% chance you’ve heard of Fëanor’s penchant for retaining an archaic TH pronunciation after the majority of the Noldor went ahead and started pronouncing this sound as S instead. You may also know that this sound is represented by the letter thorn (Þ) in HoME, but since thorn doesn’t exist in modern English orthography and it’s a pain to keep typing the ALT code, I’m sticking to TH here. Anyway, all this was due to the fact that Fëanor was a huge mama’s boy, and his mom Míriel Therindë (later called Serindë, which made Fëanor want to punch walls and possibly also fellow elves) was an outlier who retained the TH after it fell out of use. Her son Fëanor, in turn, kept this up to honor her. Now, whether or not he would have bothered if this sound hadn’t literally been a critical part of her name is debatable, but that debate is outside the scope of this essay.

Fëanor continued to use the TH pronunciation until his death, and required his sons to use it as well. Finwë, however, switched over to S after the death of Míriel and before his marriage to Indis. Fëanor, reasonable and level-headed as he was, took this as a personal insult and decided that anybody who rejected TH likewise rejected him. So presumably, his loyal followers would have obeyed his totally reasonable demands not to give in to the seductive S-shift.

Why tho

Why did the Noldor decide to alter their pronunciation from TH to S? Great question. Nobody really knows. For the hell of it? IDK. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the important thing to understand is that elves, and especially Noldor, were really committed to making sure their language sounds cool. This is why it changed so much and so comparatively quickly for an immortal population: they were actively invested in changing it. They liked inventing new words and exploring new sounds and messing around with grammar.

So at some point some influential Noldo might have been like, hey y’all, let’s stop saying TH and say S instead! And everyone (except Míriel I guess, who was known for her elegant manner of speech and didn’t want to muck that up by changing pronunciation of a whole letter) was like, whoa, capital idea my good egg. And they went with it. Previous ideas along these lines included ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying KH and say H instead’ and ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying Z and say R instead’, and those went over swimmingly. Nobody could have foreseen the problem this TH to S business would cause.

Now here’s a fun fact. There was another change to Noldorin pronunciation that happened AFTER Fëanor’s birth, that he himself was involved in. This one was all about bilabial to labiodental F. And those sure are some words, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about (I don’t blame you), BILABIAL is a more whispery sound that happens when you say F using only air passing through your pursed lips, and LABIODENTAL is when you say F with your top teeth touching your bottom lip. Going forward I’m going to use PH to represent the bilabial sound, and F for the labiodental.

So F got on the radar of the Noldor via the Teleri, who used this sound in their language. And ol’ Fëanor figured it would be awesome to incorporate it into Quenya because he thought the PH sounded too close to HW, and the two were getting confused by lazy speakers. Why did he care? Because of his dad’s name and his own, of course. If people started to get lazy in their pronunciation, we’d end up with Hwinwë and Hwëanáro, which would be terrible and stupid and unacceptable. He accused the Vanyar of leaning down that road, and he wanted to stop that kind of shift before it happened to the Noldor. How to do that? Why, by instigating a different shift from traditional Noldorin PH to Telerin F!

“Hey y’all, let’s stop saying PH and say F instead!”

“Whoa, capital idea my good egg.”

Moral of the story: Fëanor is only concerned with Quenya pronunciation insofar as it affects his own name and the names of family members he likes. He does not care whether it’s staying the same or moving to a new sound so long as it personally makes him feel good and his name sound cool. Therefore the true way to piss him off would be to call him Curuhwinwë Hwëanáro, son of Serindë.

Okay so here’s how it works

Now that history is out of the way, let’s get back to how TH was used by the Fëanorians. As I mentioned earlier, TH wasn’t a blanket pronunciation. It all depended on the original form of the word, and whether the root had a TH or an S. And some very similar-sounding words come from different roots, so this can get tricky. A great resource that’ll give you this information is Eldamo: Quenya words where the S was originally TH are marked out with the Þ (thorn) symbol in the wordlist.

Some examples:

Súlë (spirit, breath) comes from the root THŪ, which means it would be pronounced with a TH. Silma (white crystal) comes from the root SIL, so it and related words like Silmaril would be pronounced with an S. No Fëanorian would say Thilmaril. Isil (moon), however, is a similar-sounding word that comes from a different root: THIL. Olos (mass of flowers) comes from the word LOTH, but: Olos (dream) comes from the root LOS. Fëanorian pronunciation would immediately differentiate between these two words.

While Fëanorians may have retained the distinct pronunciation of TH vs S, other Noldor can still differentiate between original S and S-that-used-to-be-TH in their writing. There are specific tengwar to use depending on the word’s original form. Silmë (the one that looks like a 6) is used for original S, while súlë (or thúlë, the one that looks like an h) is used for original TH.

Which other elves used this sound in their speech?

Fandom has really latched on to this TH as a Fëanorian thing, but it wasn’t that exclusively. The TH sound was actually ubiquitous in other elven languages, and in Valinor, only the Noldor dropped it. It was still used in Telerin and in Vanyarin Quendya. The Vanyar retained the TH not because of anything to do with Míriel, but just because they were a little more conservative and their language didn’t pick up on all the changes that the Noldor made. They also noped out of the Z to R shift the Noldor initiated, opting to keep the Z around.

When Indis married Finwë, she stopped using the normal Vanyarin TH and switched over to S as a gesture of loyalty to him and his people. Finarfin, however, out of love for the Vanyar and Teleri, switched BACK to TH. I like to think about how much it would have annoyed Fëanor that his snot-nosed kid brother was speaking correctly, but for the wrong reason. Go down one more generation, and Galadriel very specifically did not use TH. But this time it was absolutely a choice made as a glaring middle finger to Fëanor.

What this means for your fanfic or whatever

The big takeaway here: you can’t just have Fëanorians replace every S with TH and call it a day.

If you’re inventing names for your Fëanorian OCs or coming up with phrases for them to say, it’s important to look into the history of all Quenya S-words you end up using to determine if they should be S or TH. If Fëanor got mad about somebody saying Serindë instead of Therindë, he’d get equally mad about somebody saying Thilmaril instead of Silmaril and assume they were mocking him. Remember: this is a dude with no chill. (On the other hand, if you WANT somebody to be mocking Fëanor, Galadriel would 100% do this because she has an equally negligible amount of chill.)

It’s also important to note that the TH isn’t a true shibboleth, since pretty much all elves EXCEPT the non-Fëanorian Noldor use it. And even the S-preferring Noldor would still be able to pronounce the TH. Those who went into exile would go on to use it commonly in Sindarin, and those who remained in Valinor would still encounter it among the Vanyar and Teleri. So if you’re writing a scene where somebody has to pronounce a TH word to prove their loyalty… yeah, everyone can pass this test. And in the opposite direction, you can’t use TH to prove somebody’s an evil Fëanorian, either. They might just be Vanyarin or something. Or, like. Really Old.

Would the sons (and followers) of Fëanor keep using TH after his death? Oh hell yeah. This is an entire family unfamiliar with the concept of not dying on hills. They will keep using it unto the ending of the world. Actually, with Sindarin becoming the common language of Middle-earth from the First Age, probably not a lot of change happened in exilic Quenya. It became a lore language: a piece of living history. It would have been preserved as it was when the original speakers left Valinor.

(And then, thousands of years later, Galadriel finally returns home to Tirion like, Long have mine eyes awaited this most blissful of sights, and ne’er hath my sprit soared with such grace, for I am returned! And all the Amanyar Noldor stare at her like, whatchu bangin on bout, eh? Because they had nothing better to do in the peace of Valinor than push Quenya to brave and frankly questionable new horizons.)

Anyway, there you go: a somewhat brief history of Fëanorian Quenya. I hope you found this informative and useful, or at the very least not boring. Obvs this is super condensed and, uh, not particularly scholarly, but I promise I know what I’m talking about. I have a university degree! (Not in anything even remotely related to what’s written above, but I hardly see how that’s relevant. It’s still a DEGREE.)

Questions? Need clarification or want more info? My asks are always open!

[discyours]

I stumbled across this article while looking for figures on what percentage of OBGYNs is actually male.

Nationally, 82 percent of doctors matching into OB-GYN residency programs are women. Many OB-GYN patients say they prefer female doctors. Merriam's residency class is a bit of an anomaly — half of its members are men. Though it's nice to work with so many women, Merriam says, she and some of her female colleagues also like the perspective that men bring to the work environment."No one could really pinpoint about what balance they bring, but there's something nice about having them," she says. It's important to have men in the field, she says, if only to continue to give patients options in their choice of providers. But most of her friends and other women she talks to, she says, want female doctors.

Blake Butterworth, a fourth-year obstetrics and gynecology resident at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, says he doesn't take it personally when he hears that sort of thing from a patient.

"I don't get discouraged; I don't get offended," Butterworth says. "I gladly hand that patient off."

He's one of only two male residents in the program of 24 at MUSC and says he finds it rewarding when he can win a new patient's confidence.

"I have patients that clearly express disdain to have to see a guy," he says. "Then I develop rapport with her. And she says, 'I expected you to be X-Y-Z, and you were better than that.' "

Butterworth says he chose obstetrics and gynecology because it lets him develop long-term relationships with patients — providing routine OB-GYN care and more complicated surgeries if need be.

"Once you really get into it, and get involved in it, I don't think that bias [that the field is best left to women] holds true," he says.

Butterworth believes it is incumbent on male OB-GYNs to talk to male medical students about the benefits of having men in the field. Students need to know it's OK to have an interest in the field, he says, and that they will find work.

In fact, says Dr. Ashlyn Savage, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at MUSC, it may be the opposite.

"In an effort to really diversify the applicant pool, we will apply in some cases different screening standards to decide who we are going to interview," Savage says. "For example, we might consider an applicant with a slightly lower board score — just to enhance how many men we are interviewing and considering."

Bolding mine. So basically, it’s important to get male doctors into the field, even though nobody can actually point to why. Most women prefer female doctors. Male OBGYNs admit to getting patients who openly detest having to see a man. Male applicants are making it into the field despite having lower scores than would usually be considered, just for the sake of “diversification” which, again, nobody has actually found any kind of benefit to (this much is pointed out in the article too, I only quoted a few parts). Absolute insanity.

[lyranova]

Hiya it’s me again with another request this time I’ve noticed a lack of zobra fic so i was wondering if I could get a fic where zora finds out nebra is pregnant through a sequence of events good or bad that’s your choice, thanks in advance

Hiya there 😁! Of course you can have a zobra fic (i’ve gotten a lot of Zobra requests lately hehe) and I hope you enjoy 🥰! This starts out very chaotic like the Greyche wedding but there is Zobra fluff at the end 😁!

Taglist: @crazyclownthanos

Word: 1,392

Warnings: Pregnancy

———

The Black Bull hideout was in chaos, which was normal for them, everyday was pretty chaotic at their hideout. But today was different. This chaos wasn’t the usual chaos that everyone was used to.

“ Alright, who’s test is it?” Finral asked the female members of the Black Bulls, who all just looked at him as though he had lost his mind.

“ What test are you talking about?” Noelle asked as she crossed her arms, this was ridiculous. It was as though he were wanting them to fill in the blank.

“ You know exactly what test I’m talking about! This one with the plus sign!” He shouted as he held out the test to them, each of the women, as well as a few of the male Black Bulls, looked at it.

It was a pregnancy test, and it had a positive result!

The women looked at each other in surprise, as did the men. There were quite a few bulls who were in relationships with each other, there were some that had relationships with members of other squads, and some were single.

“ So who’s test is it?” Finral asked, he wasn’t angry at them, he was just surprised. He also realized as he found the test that he would most likely be the child’s designated babysitter and their transportation!

“ Grey, is it yours?!” Asta suddenly shouted and everyone turned to look at the blue haired mage, even Gauche!

“ I-It’s not mine I swear!” She stammered, she covered her face with her hands but everyone could see that her face was bright red. “ I-If I was G-Gauche would have been the first p-person I told!” She added quickly, and everyone nodded. She had a point.

“ Vanessa? What about you?” Finral asked as he looked at her and she let out a laugh.

“ I can assure you with 100% certainty that it’s not mine.” Vanessa said as she crossed her arms, everyone nodded. She tended to be very careful when it came to that sorta thing.

“ It’s not mine.” Nero stated bluntly, and once again everyone nodded.

“ It’s not mine either.” Charmy also told the group bluntly, and then everyone turned their attention to the only other person it could be.

“ N-Noelle?!” Asta nearly in surprise, they all watched as the silver haired woman’s face turned a bright red.

“ I-It’s not mine!” She shouted back, but everyone caught that she stammered.

“ You’re stammering, so it’s gotta be yours!” Magna shouted, causing Noelle to stammer again as she tried to defend herself.

“ Looks like you’re gonna be a papa Asta.” Zora joked as he clapped the shorter man on the shoulder, Asta turned towards the red head and he almost laughed at how pale his face was.

“ B-But how? I’m not ready to be a papa yet!” Asta shouted, and Noelle sighed.

“ It isn’t me! Asta and I haven’t even done anything like that!” She shouted as her face turned an even brighter shade of red.

“ She’s right, it’s not her.” Captain Yami said as he walked into the room, everyone turned towards him with a frown.

“ How do you know Captain?” Luck asked with a slight tilt of his head.

“ The Captain is a walking lie detector and a walking pregnancy test, remember? He’s been able to tell whenever someone’s pregnant or not.” Finral said with a small sigh of relief.

“ And yet he couldn’t tell when his own wife was pregnant.” Gauche muttered, causing Yami to glare at him.

“ Anyway,” Yami said as he cleared his throat. “ No one in the Hideout is pregnant, but I think Noelle knows who is.” He added as he looked at her. Noelle looked away from everyone.

“ Who is it Noelle?” Asta asked curiously, she let out a small sigh before turning towards Zora.

“ I think you should go talk to Nebra.” Noelle told the redhead softly, and Zora let out a snort.

“ Why do I need to talk to Nebra?” He asked with a laugh, everyone blinked in surprise before looking at him. When Zora noticed the serious look on Noelle’s face, and her words sank in, he realized what she meant.

“ Oh…oh crap.” He muttered as it all dawned on him what this meant, Finral quickly offered to take him to the Silva residence and the two left the Hideout using Finral’s portal.

———

“ Nebra!” Zora shouted as he walked through the residence, the people there were looking at him as though he were crazy, and Finral tried desperately to get him to calm down.

“ Nebra! Where are you?” He shouted again, and as he walked down the hall he noticed a door open and the woman of the hour poked her head out.

“ Zora? What’re you-?” She went to ask but he cut her off.

“ Is it true?” He asked slightly out of breath, he noticed her eyes widen slightly, but she quickly frowned in confusion.

“ Is what true?” She asked as she crossed her arms.

“ Are you preg-?” He went to ask but she quickly placed a hand over his mouth and began to pull him away towards a private room.

She managed to open the door to her bedroom, let go of Zora, and she quickly closed it behind her while placing a finger against her lips to keep him quiet.

“ What was that for?!” He nearly shouted, but got a ‘shush’ in response.

“ Keep it down, otherwise everyone will hear!” She whisper shouted at him, the redhead sighed before walking towards her.

“ Is it true? Are you pregnant?” He asked quietly, he watched the silver haired woman walk towards the bed to sit down, and she nodded slowly.

“ Yes, at least that's what the test said. I’m going to have it confirmed by Owen tomorrow morning.” She told him quietly, Zora walked towards her and crouched down.

“ Why didn’t you say anything? Hell, why did you take the test at our Hideout?” He asked in confusion, he watched Nebra look away sheepishly.

“ I didn’t want to tell you until I confirmed it with Owen.” She muttered. “ And I took the test at the Black Bulls because Noelle was there, and I needed my sister. I also didn’t want Solid or Nozel to find out about it yet.” She added.

“ Why?” Zora asked softly, he could understand Nebra needing her sister at a time like this, but why didn’t she want Nozel or Solid to know? “ Are you…ashamed that you might be carrying my child?” He asked her, and he watched her shake her head quickly.

“ No of course not-!” She went to deny it but Zora stood up and began to pace a bit.

“ Or is it you’re scared they and others won’t approve because I’m not a royal or a noble?” He asked, and she quickly jumped up and grabbed him by the shoulders.

She quickly placed a hand on either side of his face and made him look at her, she knew most of his worries were from his self doubt and from just finding out he would be a father.

“ Zora look at me and listen, that’s not the reason I haven't told my brothers about it. I haven’t told them for the same reason I didn’t want to tell you yet, because I wanted to confirm it first with Owen just in case it was a false positive.” She explained softly. “ Besides, if those two still had a problem with you being a commoner do you think they would have let me marry you?” She added with a small laugh, Zora nodded. She had a point.

“ So please don’t misunderstand.” She told him softly. “ I was going to tell you first thing tomorrow, actually I was going to try and make it a big reveal like some of my friends did with their spouses.” She added with a laugh.

“ Sorry I ruined it.” Zora muttered as he rubbed the back of his head, Nebra shook hers and placed a kiss on his lips.

“ It’s alright, I should have known better than to take the test at the Black Bulls. You guys can’t keep a secret.” She muttered, causing Zora to laugh and nod in agreement.

When the red haired man returned to the base and everyone began to ask if it was true all Zora would do was shrug and tell them they’d find out soon enough.

———

Thank you all so much for reading and I hope you all have a good day 🥰!

[murphyhatesme]

Getting a new car leads to some life changing realisations .. After a talk with Chin Danny finally decides to take a chance on Steve.

--

Danny closes his eyes and presses his lips together before he answers Jack, from ballistics, “Yeah okay, I’ll get back to you with a budget okay?”

“Sure thing Danny, I’ve already given them an estimate on the parts so that should help.”

“Yes it should, thanks Jack. Hopefully we’ll talk soon.”

Just as he puts his phone down Steve walks into his office, “what was the verdict?”

“It’s totalled. Couldn’t be saved. I’m going to have to speak with the governor about a budget.”

“ Ah .”

Danny looks up at that, “What did you do?”

Steve takes a step back, pointing at himself “Me? Nothing?”

“ Steven. ”

Steve sighs, “Now, I need you to promise me you won’t get mad.”

“Tell me!”

“A ah, promise me first.”

“Steven I swear to god ..”

“Fine! I was going to tell you at dinner tonight. I may have talked to Sam already and he agreed with my choice.”

“Your choice? Explain how this is your choice when it’s my car?”

“Danny, I always drive our car.”

“Excuse you, there is nothing ‘ our’ about the car. It’s mine!”

Steve waves his protests away and walks around the desk coming to stop besides Danny. He leans over and pulls the keyboard towards himself. Danny refuses to move aside and Steve is signing, letting him know he’s annoyed by Danny’s unwillingness to move aside. He knows he’s being petty but he’ll be damned if he lets Steve take over his office as well as his life.

“Will you just ..” Steve snaps before shoving the keyboard back “Ugh, fine! Have it your way you big baby.” he steps back and Danny smirks only to lose it when his chair is jerked back and he’s bodily lifted out of his seat. 

Danny can feel his eyes widen as he’s sat down on Steve’s lap. “Excuse you?” Squirming he tries to stand up but Steve tuts at him and rolls the chair back up to the desk. Pulling the keyboard closer he logs out of Danny’s mail and into his own. “Steve, I’m sorry okay, can you let ..” He’s distracted by the beautiful, sleek black Camaro that appeared on screen. He bends forward and takes over the keyboard, he immediately opens google. He types in the dealer’s website, looking up the specs on the car Steve just showed him.  “Did you really? And Sam agreed? You really ordered this one?”

Steve chuckles behind him, “Yes Danny, really. So I take it, you're fine with me picking our car?”

Danny nods and sits back, Steve’s hands wrap around his waist to keep him from sliding down and he’s suddenly aware of just where he’s sitting. His breath hitches and his stomach muscles quiver when a warm thumb caresses his hip bone, oh fuck. He bolts up and steps away from his desk, clearing his throat, “Right, so uh when is it arriving?”

Steve’s eyes are glittering with amusement when he answers “We can pick it up tomorrow.”

“Okay, so first thing in the morning?”

“Uhu, we have an appointment at nine.”

“Great! Now go, I have things to do.”

Steve smirks, “sure, things ..”

Danny can feel his face flush and he narrows his eyes, “What’s with the tone? Huh? You don’t believe I have things to do?”

“Oh no, I do believe that, but I wonder if you are ever going to own up to those things .” 

Danny freezes, his first thought is that Steve knows! Followed by he knows and wants Danny to do something about it. He files it away and shoos Steve out of his office. More than a little freaked out he picks up his wallet and drags Chin out for an early lunch. Chin is a good soundboard and he’ll be honest.

*

 After ordering he folds his hands and takes a deep breath, “So Steve ..” he pauses, not sure how to begin. 

Chin sighs deeply, “So he finally told you huh?”

Danny sits up and he eyes Chin suspiciously, “What exactly do you think he told me?”

Chin rolls his eyes, “Danny, he feels the same way about you as you feel about him. He’s been waiting for you to act on it.”

“Well if he knew then he could have been the one to act on it.”

Chin raises his brow, “No, because you would have hidden behind a wall of insecurities and excuses.”

“And those still stand!”

“Then why are we here?”

“Because .. I rea .. No, I just ..” He sighs, “Maybe I freaked out a little bit.” Chin nods his head in sympathy and Danny bristles “Not because of the reasons you think! He’s my boss and I actually like him. If I act on it and it goes south then I ..”

Chin interrupts him, “You forget that he’s in the same boat, also are you really scared that things won’t work out? Because you and Steve are basically married already.”

“We are not!” 

Chin holds up his hand “Couples counselling Danny.” he ticks off a finger, “You share a car.” He puts another finger down, “You live together and last but not least,” he ticks off another finger, “You have a date night every other week.”

Danny shakes his head, “No, nope. It’s my car. I stay in the guest room because I have mold. And we watch a game!”

Chin however is not impressed, “You two cuddle, Danny.”

“Ugh! Fine. it’s only because it’s easy with him okay!”

“Danny, why is it easy?”

 “We’re best friends. I trust him.”

“I’m your best friend.”

“That’s different.”

“Brah ..” Chin lets out a long suffering sigh. 

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Danny .. Stop running, he loves you just as you are. He isn’t Rachel.”

Closing his eyes, Danny breathes out. “I know, okay. I know.”

Chin smiles at him, “Good talk. Should we take back lunch for Steve and Kono?”

“Fine, what does Kono normally like?”

“She likes spicy tuna.” 

Danny orders a spicy tuna sandwich and a meat lover's one for Steve. When he gets back to the table Chin is smirking, “What?”

“You notice how you didn’t even think about what to get for Steve?”

“That logic is flawed because you knew what Kono liked.”

“Only because I take our lunch orders at least twice a week, what’s your excuse?”

Danny decides to ignore the knowing grin and focuses on the counter, waiting for their order to be called. 

*

 The next morning Danny is up early, he tries to enjoy his morning coffee but he’s too excited, or nervous. He’s getting a new car. He ignores the other reason for his nerves. Despite him waiting for it he still startles when the front door opens and Steve swans in. “Ready?”

“Good morning to you too.”

Steve rolls his eyes, “Come on, traffic is going to be a bitch.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you made an appointment on Saturday at nine.” But he still follows Steve out to the truck. He manages to slap the back of his partner's head when he hears Steve mutter ‘ bitch bitch bitch ’.

Steve is in the office with the dealer, taking care of the paperwork and Danny is standing in front of his car. The powerful, sleek, black muscle car is exactly what he’d have chosen for himself. Which also means  that despite what he says Steve knows Danny through and through. He slowly walks around the car, fingers lightly tracing the shiny new paint. He slides into the driver's seat, lovingly caressing the steering wheel and smiling as he takes in the new car smell. 

Steve comes out of the office, and the manager waves over one of the sales guys. Steve smiles when their eyes meet and Danny smiles back as he holds up his thumb. Steve gestures for him to get out before turning and shaking the manager’s hand. Danny gets out and Steve steps in close as the salesman, Gary, who followed Steve comes over to shake his hand. “You made the right decision with this car.”

“Yes, I believe we did. Do I have to sign anything?”

“No Sir, your husband took care of everything.” Danny opens his mouth to correct the assumption but Gary is talking again, “So here are the keys.” He hands the keys to Steve, “Congratulations on your buy.” 

Danny plucks the keys out of Steve’s hand, “Thanks Gary.” He leaves Steve standing there as he slides back into the driver's seat. When Steve pulls the seatbelt over his chest Danny starts the car, “What about your truck?”

“Nahele is picking it up with Jerry later, driving lessons.”

Danny nods and turns smoothly onto the motorway, “I love my new car.”

“ Our car Danny.”

“Just because Gary back there thinks we are married doesn’t make it true.”

“So I feel like this car is a Goliath?” Steve says and Danny chokes.

“Excuse me?”

“No? Atlas then?”

“We are not naming this car Atlas.” Danny snaps

Steve grins. “It has a lot of horsepower, so maybe black beauty, BB for short?” 

“No, this car has no name. It doesn’t need one. If we name it then we become attached and in our line of work that is not a good thing Steven.”

“So Zeus is out?”

“Oh my god. Stop it. Please for the sake of my sanity.” 

Steve suddenly seems to notice they are driving out of town instead of home. “Huh? Where are we going?”

Danny grins but doesn’t say anything. He takes a right turn and smiles when he hears the quiet ah as Steve figures out where they are going. 

When he parks the car, they get out and walk to the edge of the lookout. Danny takes Steve’s hand and presses the keys into his palm. “What are we doing here Danny?”

“I figured something out yesterday, and as you know this is where I go to start life changing decisions.”

“Life changing?” Steve’s tone is both hopeful and disbelieving and Danny suddenly knows he won’t regret what he’s about to confess. Instead of visions of failure he sees himself old and wrinkled on the beach behind their house, bickering about stupid things. For once he can see a happy future because he loves this man and he’s pretty sure Steve loves him in return.

He takes a deep breath, finally ready to say it and mean it. “Okay, I’m going to come out and just say it then. I love you.”

Steve tilts his head, “I love you too?”

“No, Steve, I’m in love with you.”

“Oh. Yes, I knew that.” Steve tells him before pulling him in and kissing him soundly on the lips. 

Danny splutters, and pushes Steve away, “Don’t you have anything to say to that?”

“I’ve been saying it for ages Danny, I’m glad you finally caught up.” Steve states matter of factly and slowly leans back in, Danny shudders as their lips connect once again. Danny deepens it almost immediately and Steve groans as their tongues brush together for the first time. He loses himself in the kisses as the sun steadily rises and the traffic rushes past behind them. 

When they break apart, both breathless Danny sweeps his thumb over Steve’s kiss swollen bottom lip, “How about we go home and find some things to do?”

Steve grins, “Yes please.” He gives Danny a quick, hard kiss before dragging him to the car. 

Danny is laughing as he slides into the passenger's seat, “So eager.”

“Well if I had known that picking out a new car for us would have this result ..”

“A new car for me .” Danny feels the need to point out. 

Steve scoffs, “We both know I’ll be the one to drive it five days out of the week.”

“I ..” and just like that it doesn’t matter, so he sighs and gives in. “Fair enough.”

Steve’s grin lights up his face and Danny knows he’ll spend the rest of life trying to keep that smile in place. 

                                                  Fin

[insanehobbit]

a twenty-five thousand word post about a twenty-three year old “debate”

As time goes on, I’m baffled that it remains a commonly held opinion that:

The LTD remains unresolved

SE is deliberately playing coy, and are (or have been) afraid to resolve it.

To me, the answer is as clear as day, and yet seeing so many people acting as if it’s a question that remains unanswered makes me wonder if I’m the crazy one.

So I am going to try to articulate my thought process here, not because I expect to change any hearts and minds, but more to get these thoughts out of my head and onto a page so I can finally read a book and/or watch reruns of Shark Tank in peace.

To start off, there are two categories of argument (that are among, if not the most widely used lines of argument) that I will try NOT to engage with:

1) Quotes from Ultimania or developer interviews - while they’re great for easter eggs and behind-the-scenes info, if a guidebook is required to understand key plot points, you have fundamentally failed as a storyteller. Now the question of which character wants to bone whom is often something that can be relegated to a guidebook, but in the case of FF7, you would be watching two very different stories play out depending on who Cloud ends up with.

Of course, the Ultimanias do spell this out clearly, but luckily for us, SE are competent enough storytellers that we can find the answer by looking at the text alone.

2) Arguments about character actions/motivations — specifically, I’m talking about stuff like “Cloud made this face in this scene, which means be must be [insert whatever here].”

Especially when it comes to the LTD, these tend to focus on individual actions, decontextualizing them from their role in the narrative as a whole. LTDers often try to put themselves in the character’s shoes to suss out what they may be thinking and feeling in those moments. These arguments will be colored by personal experiences, which will inevitably vary.

Let’s take for example Cloud’s behavior in Advent Children. One may argue that it makes total sense given that he’s dying and fears failing the ones he loves. Another may argue that there’s no way that he would run unless he was deeply unhappy and pining after a lost love. Well, you’ll probably just be talking over each other until the cows come home. Such is the problem with trying to play armchair therapist with a fictional character. It’s not like we can ask Cloud himself why he did what he did (and even if we could, he’s not the exactly the most reliable narrator in the world). Instead, in trying to understand his motivations, we are left with no choice but to draw comparisons with our own personal experiences, those of our friends, or other works of media we’ve consumed. Any interpretation would be inherently subjective and honestly, a futile subject for debate.

There’s nothing wrong with drawing personal connections with fictional characters of course. That is the purpose of art after all. They are vessels of empathy. But when we’re talking about what is canon, it doesn’t matter what we take away. What matters is the creators’ intent.

Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are not your friends Bob, Alice and Maude. They are characters created by Square Enix. Real people can behave in a variety of different ways if they found themselves in the situations faced by our dear trio; however, FF7 characters are not sentient creatures. Everything they do or say is dictated by the developers to serve the story they are trying to tell.

So what do we have left then? Am I asking you, dear reader, to just trust me, anonymous stranger on the Internet, when I tell you #clotiiscanon. Well, in a sense, yes, but more seriously, I’m going to try to suss out what the creator’s intent is based on what is, and more importantly, what isn’t, on screen.

Instead of putting ourselves in the shoes of the characters, let’s try putting ourselves in the shoes of the creators. So the question would then be, if the intent is X, then what purpose does character Y or scene Z serve?

The story of FF7 isn’t the immutable word of God etched in a stone tablet. For every scene that made it into the final game, there are dozens of alternatives that were tossed aside. Let us also not forget the crude economics of popular storytelling. Spending resources on one particular aspect of the game may mean something entirely unrelated will have to be cut for time. Thus, the absence of a particular character/scenario is an alternative in itself. So with all these options at their disposal, why is the scene we see before us the one that made it into the final cut? — Before we dive in, I also want to define two broad categories of narrative: messy and clean.

Messy narratives are ones I would define as stories that try to illuminate something about the human condition, but may not leave the audience feeling very good by the end of it. The protagonists, while not always anti-heroes, don’t always exhibit the kind of growth we’d like, don’t always learn their lessons, probably aren’t the best role models. The endings are often ambivalent, ambiguous, and leaves room for the audience to take away from it what they will. This is the category I would put art films and prestige cable dramas.

Clean narratives are where I would categorize most popular forms of entertainment. Not that these characters necessarily lack nuance, but whatever flaws are portrayed are something to be overcome by the end of story. The protagonists are characters you’re supposed to want to root for

Final Fantasy as a series would fall under the ‘clean’ category. Sure, many of the protagonists start out as jerks, but they grow through these flaws and become true heroes by the end of their journey. Hell, a lot of the time even the villains are redeemed. They want you to like the characters you’re spending a 40+ hr journey with. Their depictions can still be realistic, but they will become the most idealized versions of themselves by the end of their journeys.

This is important to establish, because we can then assume that it is not SE’s intent to make any of their main characters come off pathetic losers or unrepentant assholes. Now whether or not they succeed in that endeavor is another question entirely.

FF7 OG or The dumbest thought experiment in the world

With that one thousand word preamble out of the way, let’s finally take a look at the text. In lieu of going through the OG’s story beat by beat, let’s try this thought experiment:

Imagine it’s 1996, and you’re a development executive at what was then Squaresoft. The plucky, young development team has the first draft of what will become the game we know as Final Fantasy VII. Like the preceding entries in the series, it’s a world-spanning action adventure RPG, with a key subplot being the epic tragic romance between its hero and heroine, Cloud and Aerith.

They ask you for your notes.

(For the sake of your sanity and mine, let’s limit our hypothetical notes to the romantic subplot)

Disc 1 - everything seems to be on the right track. Nice meet-cute, lots of moments developing the relationship between our pair. Creating a love triangle with this Tifa character is an interesting choice, but she’s a comparatively minor character so she probably won’t be a real threat and will find her happiness elsewhere by the end of the game. You may note that they’re leaning a bit too much into Tifa and Cloud’s past. Especially the childhood promise flashback early in the game — cute scene, but a distraction from main story and main pairing — fodder for the chopping block. You may also bump on the fact that Aerith is initially attracted to Cloud because he reminds her of an ex, but this is supposed to be a more mature FF. That can be an obstacle they overcome as Aerith gets to know the real Cloud.

Aerith dies, but it is supposed to be a tragic romance after all. Death doesn’t have to be the end for this relationship, especially since Aerith is an Ancient after all.

It’s when Disc 2 starts that things go off the rails. First off, it feels like an awfully short time for Cloud to be grieving the love of his life, though it’s somewhat understandable. This story is not just a romance. There are other concerns after all, Cloud’s identity crisis for one. Though said identity crisis involves spending a lot of time developing his relationship with another woman. It’s one thing for Cloud and Tifa to be from the same hometown, but does she really need to play such an outsized role in his internal conflict? This might give the player the wrong impression.

You get to the Northern Crater, and it just feels all wrong. Cloud is more or less fine after the love of his life is murdered in front of his eyes but has a complete mental breakdown to the point that he’s temporarily removed as a playable character because Tifa loses faith in him??? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Oh, but it only gets worse from here. With Cloud gone, the POV switches to Tifa and her feelings for him and her desire to find him. The opening of the game is also recontextualized when you learn the only reason that Cloud was part of the first Reactor mission that starts the game is because Tifa found him and wanted to keep an eye on him.

Then you get to Mideel and the alarm bells are going off. Tifa drops everything, removing her from the party as well, to take care of Cloud while he’s a catatonic vegetable? Not good. Very not good. This level of selfless devotion is going to make Cloud look like a total asshole when he rejects her in favor of Aerith. Speaking of Aerith, she uh…hasn’t been mentioned for some time. In fact, her relationship with Cloud has remained completely static after Disc 1, practically nonexistent, while his with Tifa has been building and building. Developing a rival relationship that then needs to be dismantled rather than developing the endgame relationship doesn’t feel like a particularly valuable use of time and resources.

By the time you get to the Lifestream scene, you’re about ready to toss the script out of the window. Here’s the emotional climax of the entire game, where Cloud’s internal conflict is finally resolved, and it almost entirely revolves around Tifa? Rather than revisiting the many moments of mental anguish we experienced during the game itself — featuring other characters, including let’s say, Aerith — it’s about a hereto unknown past that only Tifa has access to? Not only that, but we learn that the reason Cloud wanted to join SOLDIER was to impress Tifa, and the reason he adopted his false persona was because he was so ashamed that he couldn’t live up to the person he thought Tifa wanted him to be? Here, we finally get a look into the inner life of one half of our epic couple and…it entirely revolves around another woman??

Cloud is finally his real self, and hey, it looks like he finally remembers Aerith, that’s at least a step in the right direction. Though still not great. With his emotional arc already resolved, any further romantic developments is going to feel extraneous and anticlimactic. It just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to establish that:

Cloud’s romantic feelings for Tifa (which were strong enough to launch his hero’s journey) have transformed into something entirely platonic in the past few days/weeks

Cloud’s feelings for Aerith that he developed while he was pretending to be someone else (and not just any someone, but Aerith’s ex of all people) are real.

This isn’t a romantic melodrama after all. There’s still a villain to kill and a world to save.

Cloud does speak of Aerith wistfully, and even quite personally at times, yet every time he talks about her, he’s surrounded by the other party members. A scene or two where he can grapple with his feelings for her on his own would help. Her ghost appearing in the Sector 5 Church feels like a great opportunity for this to happen, but he doesn’t interact with it at all. What gives? Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

The night before the final battle, Cloud asks the entire party to find what they’re fighting for. This feels like a great (and perhaps the last) opportunity to establish that for Cloud, it’s in Aerith’s memory and out of his love for her. He could spend those hours alone in any number of locations associated with her — the Church, the Temple of the Ancients, the Forgotten City.

Instead — none of those happens. Instead, once again, it’s Cloud and Tifa in another scene where they’re the only two characters in the scene. You’re really going to have Cloud spend what could very well be the last night of his life with another woman? With a fade to black that strongly implies they slept together? In one fell swoop, you’re portraying Cloud as a guy who not only betrays the memory of his lost love, but is also incredibly callous towards the feelings of another woman by taking advantage of her vulnerability. Why are we rooting for him to succeed again?

Cloud and the gang finally defeat Sephiroth, and Aerith guides him back into the real world. Is he finally explicitly stating that he’s searching for her (though they’ve really waited until the last minute to do so), but again, why is Tifa in this scene? Shouldn’t it just be Cloud and Aerith alone? Why have Tifa be there at all? Why have her and her alone of all the party members be the one waiting for Cloud? Do you need to have Tifa there to be rejected while Cloud professes his unending love for Aerith? It just feels needlessly cruel and distracts from what should be the sole focus of the scene, the love between Cloud and Aerith.

What a mess.

You finish reading, and since it is probably too late in the development process to just fire everyone, you offer a few suggestions that will clarify the intended romance while the retaining the other plot points/general themes of the game.

Here they are, ordered by scale of change, from minor to drastic:

Option 1 would be to keep most of the story in tact, but rearrange the sequence of events so that the Lifestream sequence happens before Aerith’s death. That way, Cloud is his true self and fully aware of his feelings for both women before Aerith’s death. That way, his past with Tifa isn’t some ticking bomb waiting to go off in the second half of the game. That development will cease at the Lifestream scene. Cloud will realize the affection he held for her as a child is no longer the case. He is grateful for the past they shared, but his future is with Aerith. He makes a clear choice before that future is taken away from him with her death. The rest of the game will go on more or less the same (with the Highwind scene being eliminated, of course) making it clear, that avenging the death of his beloved is one of, if not the, primary motivation for him wanting to defeat Sephiroth.

The problem with this “fix” is that a big part of the reason that Aerith gets killed is because of Cloud’s identity crisis. If said crisis is resolved, the impact of her death will be diminished, because it would feel arbitrary rather than something that stems from the consequences of Cloud’s actions. More of the story will need to be reconceived so that this moment holds the same emotional weight.

Another problem is why the Lifestream scene needs to exist at all. Why spend all that time developing the backstory for a relationship that will be moot by the end of the game? It makes Tifa feel like less of a character and more of a plot device, who becomes irrelevant after she services the protagonist’s character development and then has none of her own. That’s no way to treat one of the main characters of your game.

Option 2 would be to re-imagine Tifa’s character entirely. You can keep some of her history with Cloud in tact, but expand her backstory so she is able to have a satisfactory character arc outside of her relationship with Cloud. You could explore the five years in her life since the Nibelheim incident. Maybe she wasn’t in Midgar the whole time. Maybe, like Barret, she has her own Corel, and maybe reconciling with her past there is the climax of her emotional arc as opposed to her past with Cloud. For Cloud too, her importance needs to be diminished. She can be one of the people who help him find his true self in the Lifestream, but not the only person. There’s no reason the other people he’s met on his journey can’t be there. Thus their relationship remains somewhat important, but their journeys are not so entwined that it distracts from Cloud and Aerith’s romance.

Option 3 would be to really lean into the doomed romance element of Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Have her death be the cause of his mental breakdown, and have Aerith be the one in the Lifestream who is able to put his mind back together and bring him back to the realm of consciousness. After he emerges, he has the dual goal of defeating Sephiroth and trying to reunite with Aerith. In the end, in order to do the former, he has to relinquish the latter. He makes selfless choice. He makes the choice that resonates the overall theme of the game. It’s a bittersweet but satisfying ending. Cloud chooses to honor her memory and her purpose over the chance to physically bring her back. In this version of the game, the love triangle serves no purpose. There’s no role for Tifa at all.

Okay, we can be done with this strained counterfactual. What I’ve hopefully illustrated is that while developers had countless opportunities to solidify Cloud/Aerith as the canon couple in Discs 2 and 3 of the game, they instead chose a different route each and every time. What should also be clear is that the biggest obstacle standing in their way is not Aerith’s death, but the fact that Tifa exists.

At least in the form she takes in the final game, as a playable character and at the very least, the 3rd most important character in game’s story. She is not just another recurring NPC or an antagonist. Her love for Cloud is not going to be treated like a mere trifle or obstacle. If Cloud/Aerith was supposed to be the endgame ship, there would be no need for a love triangle and no need to include Tifa in the game at all. Death is a big enough obstacle, developing Cloud’s relationship with Tifa would only distract from and diminish his romance with Aerith.

I think this is something the dead enders understand intuitively, even more so than many Cloti shippers. Which is why some of them try to dismiss Tifa’s importance in the story so that she becomes a minor supporting character at best, or denigrate her character to the point that she becomes an actual villain. The Seifer to a Squall, the Seymour to a Tidus, hell even a Quistis to a Rinoa, they know how to deal with, but a Tifa Lockhart? As she is actually depicted in Final Fantasy VII? They have no playbook for that, and thus they desperately try to squeeze her into one of these other roles.

Let’s try another thought experiment, and see what would to other FF romances if we inserted a Tifa Lockhart-esque character in the middle of them.

FFXV is a perfect example because it features the sort of tragic love beyond death romance that certain shippers want Cloud and Aerith to be. Now, did I think FFXV was a good game? No. Did I think Noctis/Luna was a particularly well-developed romance? Also no. Did I have any question in my mind whatsoever that they were the canon relationship? Absolutely not.

Is this because they kiss at the end? Well sure, that helps, but also it’s because the game doesn’t spend the chapters after Luna’s death developing Noctis’ relationship with another woman. If Noctis/Luna had the same sort of development as Cloud/Aerith, then after Luna dies, Iris would suddenly pop in and play a much more prominent role. The game would flashback to her past and her relationship with Noctis. And it would be through his relationship with Iris that Noctis understands his duty to become king or a crystal or whatever the fuck that game was about. Iris is by Noctis’ side through the final battle, and when he ascends the throne in that dreamworld or whatever. There, Luna finally shows up again. Iris is still in the frame when Noctis tells her something like ‘Oh sorry, girl, I’ve been in love with Luna all along,” before he kisses Luna and the game ends.

(a very real scene from a very good game)

Come on. It would be utterly ludicrous and an utter disservice to every character involved, yet that is essentially the argument Cloud/Aerith shippers are making. SE may have made some pretty questionable storytelling decisions in the past, but they aren’t that bad at this.

Or in FFVIII, it would be like reordering the sequence of events so that Squall remembers that he grew up in an orphanage with all the other kids after Rinoa falls into a coma. And while Rinoa is out of commission, instead of Quistis gracefully bowing out after realizing she had mistaken her feelings of sisterly affection for love, it becomes Quistis’ childhood relationship with Squall that allows him to remember his past and re-contextualizes the game we’ve played thus far, so that the player realizes that it was actually Quistis who was his motivation all along. Then after this brief emotional detour, his romance with Rinoa would continue as usual. Absolutely absurd.

The Final Fantasy games certainly have their fair share of plot holes, but they’ve never whiffed on a romance this badly.

A somewhat more serious character analysis of the OG

What then is Tifa’s actual role in the story of FFVII? Her character is intricately connected to Cloud’s. In fact, they practically have the same arc, though Tifa’s is rather understated compared to his. She doesn’t adopt a false persona after all. For both of them, the flaw that they must learn to overcome over the course of the game is their fear of confronting the truth of their past. Or to put it more crudely, if they’re not lying, they’re at the very least omitting the truth. Cloud does so to protect himself from his fear of being exposed as a failure. Tifa does so at the expense of herself, because she fears the truth will do more harm than good. They’re two sides of the same coin. Nonetheless, their lying has serious ramifications.

The past they’re both afraid to confront is of course the Nibelheim Incident from five years ago. Thus, the key points in their emotional journeys coincide with the three conflicting Nibelheim flashbacks depicted in the game: Cloud’s false memory in Kalm, Sephiroth’s false vision in the Northern Crater, and the truth in the Lifestream.

Before they enter the Lifestream, both Cloud and Tifa are at the lowest of their lows. Cloud has had a complete mental breakdown and is functionally a vegetable. Tifa has given up everything to take care of Cloud as she feels responsible for his condition. If he doesn’t recover, she may never find peace.

With nothing left to lose, they both try to face the past head on. For Cloud, it’s a bit harder. At the heart of all this confusion, is of course, the Nibelheim Incident. How does Cloud know all these things he shouldn’t if Tifa doesn’t remember seeing him there? The emotional climax for both Cloud and Tifa, and arguably the game as a whole, is the moment the Shinra grunt removes his helmet to reveal that Cloud was there all along.

Tifa is the only character who can play this role for Cloud. It’s not like she a found a videotape in the Lifestream labeled ‘Nibelheim Incident - REAL’ and voila, Cloud is fixed. No, she is the only one who can help him because she is the only person who lived through that moment. No one else could make Cloud believe it. You could have Aerith or anyone else trying to tell him what actually happened, but why would he believe it anymore than the story Sephiroth told him at the Northern Crater?

With Tifa, it’s different. Not only was she physically there, but she’s putting as much at risk in what the truth may reveal. She’s not just a plot device to facilitate Cloud’s character development. The Lifestream sequence is as much the culmination of her own character arc. If it goes the wrong way, “Cloud” may find out that he’s just a fake after all, and Tifa may learn that boy she thought she’d been on this journey with had died years ago. That there’s no one left from her past, that it was all in her head, that she’s all alone. Avoiding this truth is a comfort, but in this moment, they’re both putting themselves on the line. Being completely vulnerable in front of the person they’re most terrified of being vulnerable with.

The developers have structured Cloud and Tifa’s character arcs so that the crux is a moment where the other is literally the only person who could provide the answer they need. Without each other, as far as the story is concerned, Cloud and Tifa would remain incomplete.

Aerith’s character arc is a different beast entirely. She is the closest we have to the traditional Campbellian Hero. She is the Chosen One, the literal last of her kind, who has been resisting the call to adventure until she can no longer. The touchstones of her character arc are the moments she learns more about her Cetra past and comes to terms with her role in protecting the planet - namely Cosmo Canyon, the Temple of the Ancients and the Forgotten City.

How do hers and Cloud’s arcs intersect? When it comes to the Nibelheim incident, she is a merely a spectator (at least during the Kalm flashback, as for the other two, she is uh…deceased). Cloud attacking her at the Temple of the Ancients, which results in her running to the Forgotten City alone and getting killed by Sephiroth, certainly exacerbates his mental deterioration, but it is by no means a turning point in his arc the way the Northern Crater is.

As for Cloud’s role in Aerith’s arc, their meeting is quite important in that it sets forth the series of events that leads her to getting captured by Shinra and thus meeting “Sephiroth” and wanting to learn more about the Cetra. It’s the inciting incident if we’re going to be really pedantic about it, yet Aerith’s actual character development is not dependent on her relationship with Cloud. It is about her communion with her Cetra Ancestry and the planet.

To put it in other terms, all else being the same, Aerith could still have a satisfying character arc had Cloud not crashed down into her Church. Sure, the game would look pretty different, but there are other ways for her to transform from a flirty, at times frivolous girl to an almost Christ-like figure who accepts the burden of protecting the planet.

Such is not the case for Cloud and Tifa. Their character arcs are built around their shared past and their relationship with one another. Without Tifa, you would have to rewrite Cloud’s character entirely. What was his motivation for joining SOLDIER? How did he get on that AVALANCHE mission in the first place? Who can possibly know him well enough to put his mind back together after it falls apart? If the answer to all these questions is the same person, then congratulations, you’ve just reverse engineered Tifa Lockhart.

Tifa fares a little better. Without Cloud, she would be a sad, sweet character who never gets the opportunity to reconcile with the trauma of her past. Superficially, a lot would be the same, but she would ultimately be quite static and all the less interesting for it.

Let’s also take a brief gander at Tifa’s role after the Lifestream sequence. At this point in the game, both Tifa and Cloud’s emotional arcs are essentially complete. They are now the most idealized versions of themselves, characters the players are meant to admire and aspire to. However they are depicted going forward, it would not be the creator’s intent for their actions to be perceived in a negative light.

A few key moments standout, ones that would not be included if the game was intended to end with any other romantic pairing or with Cloud’s romantic interest left ambiguous:

The Highwind scene, which I’ve gone over above. It doesn’t matter if you get the Low Affection or High Affection version. It would not reflect well on either Cloud or Tifa if he chose to spend what could be his last night alive with a woman whose feelings he did not reciprocate.

Before the final battle with Sephiroth, the party members scream out the reasons they’re fighting. Barret specifically calls out AVALANCHE, Marlene and Dyne, Red XIII specifically calls out his Grandpa, and Tifa specifically calls out Cloud. You are not going to make one of Tifa’s last moments in the game be her pining after a guy who has no interest in her. Not when you could easily have her mention something like her past, her hometown or hell even AVALANCHE and Marlene like Barret. If Tifa’s feelings for Cloud are meant to be unrequited, then it would be a character flaw that would be dealt with long before the final battle (see: Quistis in FF8 or Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings). They would not still be on display at moment like this.

Tifa being the only one there when Cloud jumps into the Lifestream to fight Sephiroth for the last time, and Tifa being the only one there when he emerges. She is very much playing the traditional partner/spouse role here, when you could easily have the entire party present or no one there at all. There is clearly something special about her relationship with Cloud that sets her apart from the other party members.

Once again, let’s look at the “I think I can meet her there moment.” And let’s put side the translation (the Japanese is certainly more ambiguous, and it’s not like the game had any trouble having Cloud call Aerith by her name before this). If Cloud was really expressing his desire to reunite with Aerith, and thus his rejection of Tifa, then the penultimate scene of this game is one that involves the complete utter and humiliation of one of its main characters since Tifa’s reply would indicate she’s inviting herself to a romantic reunion she has no part in. Not only that, but to anyone who is not Cl*rith shipper, the protagonist of the game is going to come off as a callous asshole. That cannot possibly be the creator’s intention. They are competent enough to depict an act of love without drawing attention to the party hurt by that love.

What then could possibly be the meaning? Could it possibly be Cloud trying to comfort Tifa by trying to find a silver lining in what appears to be their impending death? That this means they may get to see their departed loved ones again, including their mutual friend, Aerith? (I will note that Tifa talks about Aerith as much, if not even more than Cloud, after her death). Seems pretty reasonable to me, this being an interpretation of the scene that aligns with the overall themes of the game, and casts every character in positive light during this bittersweet moment.

Luckily enough, we have an entire fucking Compilation to find out which is right.

But before we get there, I’m sure some of you (lol @ me thinking anyone is still reading this) are asking, if Cloti is canon, then why is there a love triangle at all? Why even hint at the possibility of a romance between Cloud and Aerith? Wouldn’t that also be a waste of time and resources if they weren’t meant to be canon?

Well, there are two very important reasons that have nothing to do with romance and everything to do with two of the game’s biggest twists:

Aerith initially being attracted to Cloud’s similarities to Zack/commenting on the uncanniness of said similarities is an organic way to introduce the man Cloud’s pretending to be. Without it, the reveal in the Lifestream would fall a bit flat. The man he’s been emulating all along would just be some sort of generic hero rather than a person whose history and deeds already encountered during the course of the game. Notably for this to work, the game only has to establish Aerith’s attraction to Cloud.

To build the player’s attachment to Aerith before her death/obscure the fact that she’s going to die. With the technological limitations of the day, the only way to get the player to interact with Aerith is through the player character (AKA Cloud), and adding an element of choice (AKA the Gold Saucer Date mechanic) makes the player even more invested. This then elevates Aerith’s relationship with Cloud over hers with any other character. At the same time, because her time in the game is limited, Cloud ends up interacting with Aerith more than any of the other characters, at least in Disc 1. The choice to make many of these interactions flirty/romantic also toys with player expectations. One does not expect the hero’s love interest to die halfway through the game. The game itself also spends a bit of time teasing the romance, albeit, largely in superficial ways like other characters commenting on their relationship or Cait Sith reading their love fortune at the Temple of the Ancients. Yet, despite the quantity of their personal interactions, Cloud and Aerith never display any moments of deep love or devotion that one associates with a Final Fantasy romance. They never have the time. What the game establishes then is the potential of a romance rather than the romance itself. Aerith’s death hurts because of all that lost potential. There so many things she wanted to do, so many places she wanted to see that will never happen because her life is cut short. Part of what is lost, of course, is the potential of her romance with Cloud.

This creative choice is a lot more controversial since it elevates subverting audience expectations over character, and understandably leads to some player confusion. What’s the point of all this set up if there’s not going to be a pay off? Well, that is kind of the point. Death is frustrating because of all the unknowns and what-ifs. But, I suppose some people just can’t accept that fact in a game like this.

One last note on the OG before we move on: Even though this from an Ultimania, since we’re talking about story development and creator intent, I thought it was relevant to include: the fact that Aerith was the sole heroine in early drafts of the game is not the LTD trump card so people think it is. Stories undergo radical changes through the development process. More often than not, there are too many characters, and characters are often combined or removed if their presence feels redundant or confusing.

In this case, the opposite happened. Tifa was added later in the development process as a second heroine. Let’s say that Aerith was the Last Ancient and the protagonist’s sole love interest in this early draft of Final Fantasy VII. In the game that was actually released, that role was split between two characters (and last I checked, Tifa is not the last of a dying race), and Aerith dies halfway through the game, so what does that suggest about how Aerith’s role may have changed in the final product? Again, if Aerith was intended to be Cloud’s love interest, Tifa simply would not exist.

A begrudging analysis of our favorite straight-to-DVD sequel

Let’s move onto the Compilation. And in doing so, completely forget about the word vomit that’s been written above. While it’s quite clear to me now that there’s no way in hell the developers would have intended the last scene in the game to be both a confirmation of Cloud’s love for Aerith and his rejection of Tifa, in my younger and more vulnerable years, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, this was the prevailing interpretation back in the pre-Compilation Dark Ages. Probably because of a dubious English translation of the game and a couple of ambiguous cameos in Final Fantasy Tactics and Kingdom Hearts were all we  had to go on.

How then did the official sequel to Final Fantasy VII change those priors?

Two years after the events of the game, Cloud is living as a family with Tifa and two kids rather than scouring the planet for a way to be reunited with Aerith. Shouldn’t the debate be well and over with that? Obviously not, and it’s not just because people were being obstinate. Part of the confusion stems from Advent Children itself, but I would argue that did not come from an intent to play coy/keep Cloud’s romantic desires ambiguous, but rather a failure of execution of his character arc.

Now I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film when I first watched a bootlegged copy I downloaded off LimeWire in 2005, and I like it even less now, but I better understand its failures, given its unique position as a sequel to a beloved game and the cornerstone of launching the Compilation.

The original game didn’t have such constraints on its storytelling. Outside of including a few elements that make it recognizable as a Final Fantasy (Moogles, Chocobos, Summons, etc.) and being a good enough game to be a financial success, the developers pretty much had free rein in terms of what story they wanted to tell, what characters they would use to tell it, and how long it took for them to tell said story.

With Advent Children, telling a good story was not the sole or even primary goal. Instead, it had to:

Do some fanservice: The core audience is going to be the OG fanbase, who would be expecting to see modern, high-def depictions of all the memorable and beloved characters from the game, no matter if the natural end point of their stories is long over.

Set up the rest of the Compilation - Advent Children is the draw with the big stars, but also a way to showcase the lesser known characters from from the Compilation who are going to be leading their own spinoffs.  It’s part feature film/part advertisement for the rest of the Compilation. Thus, the Turks, Vincent and Zack get larger roles in the film than one might expect to attract interest to the spinoffs they lead.

Show off its technical prowess: SE probably has enough self awareness to realize that what’s going to set it apart from other animated feature films is not its novel storytelling, but its graphical capabilities. Thus, to really show off those graphics, the film is going to be packed to the brim with big, complicated action scenes with lots of moving parts, as opposed to quieter character driven moments.

These considerations are not unique to Advent Children, but important to note nonetheless:

As a sequel, the stakes have to be just as high if not higher than those in the original work. Since the threat in the OG was the literal end of the world, in Advent Children, the world’s gotta end again

The OG was around 30-40 hours long. An average feature-length film is roughly two hours. Video games and films are two very different mediums. As many TV writers who have tried to make the transition to film (and vice-versa) can tell you, success in one medium does not translate to success in another. 

With so much to do in so little time, is it any wonder then that it is again Sephiroth who is the villain trying to destroy the world and Aerith in the Lifestream the deus ex machina who saves the day?

All of this is just a long-winded way to say, certain choices in the Advent Children that may seem to exist only to perpetuate the LTD were made with many other storytelling considerations in mind.

When trying to understand the intended character arcs and relationship dynamics, you cannot treat the film as a collection of scenes devoid of context. You can’t just say - “well here’s a scene where Cloud seems to miss Aerith, and here’s another scene where Cloud and Tifa fight. Obviously, Cloud loves Aerith.” You have to look at what purpose these scenes serve in the grander narrative.

And what is this grander narrative? To put it in simplistic terms, Aerith is the obstacle, and Tifa is goal. Cloud must get over his guilt over Aerith’s death so that he can return to living with Tifa and the children in peace.

The scenes following the prologue are setting up the emotional stakes of film - the problem that will be resolved by the film’s end. The problem being depicted here is not Aerith’s absence from Cloud’s life, but Cloud’s absence from his family. We see Tifa walking through Seventh Heaven saying “he’s not here anymore,” we see Denzel in his sickbed asking for Cloud, we see a framed photo of the four of them on Cloud’s desk. We see Cloud letting Tifa’s call go to voicemail.

What we do not see is Aerith, who does not appear until almost halfway through the film.

Cloud spends the first of the film avoiding confrontation with the Remnants/dealing with the return of Sephiroth. It’s only when Tifa is injured, and Denzel and Marlene get kidnapped that he goes to face his problems head on.

Before the final battle, when Cloud has exorcised his emotional demons and is about to face his physical demons, what do we see? We see Cloud telling Marlene that it’s his turn to take care of her, Denzel and Tifa the way they’ve taken care of him. We see Cloud telling Tifa that he ‘feels lighter’ and tacitly confirming that she was correct when she called him out earlier in the film. We see Cloud confirming to Denzel that he’s going home after this is all over.

What we do not see is Cloud telepathically communicating with Aerith to say, “Hey boo, can’t wait to beat Sephiroth so I can finally reunite with you in the Promised Land. Xoxoxo.” Aerith doesn’t factor in at all. Returning to his family is his goal, and his fight with Bahamut/the Remnants/Sephiroth/whatever the fuck is the final obstacle he has to face before reaching this goal.

This is reiterated again when Cloud is shot by Yazoo and seemingly perishes in an explosion. What is at stake with his “death”? We see Tifa calling his name while looking out the airship. We see Denzel and Marlene waiting for him at Seventh Heaven. We do not see Aerith watching over him in the Lifestream.

Now, Aerith does play an important role in Cloud’s arc when she shows up at about the midpoint of the film. You could fairly argue that it’s the turning point in Cloud’s emotional journey, the moment when he finally decides to confront his problems. But even if it’s only Cloud and Aerith in the scene, it’s not really about their relationship at all.

Let’s consider the context before this scene happens. Denzel and Marlene have been kidnapped by the Remnants; Tifa was nearly killed in a fight with another. This is Cloud at his lowest point. It’s his worst fears come to pass. His guilt over Aerith’s death is directly addressed at this moment in the film because it is not so much about his feelings for Aerith as it is about how Cloud fears the failures of his past (one of the biggest being her death) would continue into the present. If it was just about Aerith, we could have seen Cloud asking for her forgiveness at any other time in the film. It occurs when it does because this when his guilt over Aerith’s death intersects with his actual conflict, his fear that he’ll fail the the ones he loves. She appears when he’s at the Forgotten City where he goes to save the children. The same location where he had failed two year before.

This connection is made explicit when Cloud has flashes of Zack and Aerith’s deaths before he saves Denzel and Tifa from Bahamut. Again, Cloud’s dwelling on the past is directly related to his fears of being unable to protect his present.

Aerith is a feminine figure who is associated with flowers. That combined with the players’ memory of her and her relationship with Cloud in the OG, I can see how their scenes can be construed as romantic, but I really do not think that it is the creators’ intent to portray any romantic longing on Cloud’s part.

If they wanted to suggest that Cloud was still in love with Aerith or even leave his romantic interest ambiguous, there is no way in hell they would have had Cloud living with Tifa and two kids prior to the film’s events. To say nothing of opening the film by showing the pain his absence brings.

A romantic reading of Cloud’s guilt over Aerith’s death would suggest that he entered into a relationship with Tifa and started raising two children with her while still holding a torch for Aerith and hoping for a way to be reunited with her. The implication would be that Tifa is his second choice, and he is settling. Now, is this a dynamic that occurs in real life? Absolutely. Is this something that is often depicted in some films and television? Sure - in fact this very premise is at the core of one my favorite films of the last decade - 45 Years — and spoiler alert — the guy does not come off well in this situation. But once again, Cloud is not a real person, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is not a John Cassavettes film or an Ingmar Bergman chamber drama. It is a 2-hour long straight to DVD sequel for a video game made for teens. This kind of messy, if realistic, relationship dynamic is not what this particular work is trying to explore.

(one of these is a good film!)

By the end of Advent Children, Cloud is once again the idealized version of himself. A hero that the audience is supposed to like and admire. We are supposed to think that his actions in the first half of the movie (wallowing in his guilt and abandoning his family) were bad. These are the flaws that he must overcome through the course of the film, and by the end he does. If he really had been settling and treating his Seventh Heaven family as a second choice prior to the events of the film, that too would obviously be a character flaw that needs to be addressed before the end of the film. It isn’t because this is a dynamic that only exists in certain people’s imaginations.

If the creators wanted to leave the Cloud & Aerith relationship open to a romantic interpretation, they didn’t have to write themselves into such a corner. They wouldn’t have to change the final film much at all, merely adjust the chronology a bit. Instead of Cloud already living as a family with Tifa, Marlene and Denzel prior to the beginning of the film, you would show them on the precipice of becoming a family, but with Cloud being unable to take the final step without getting over his feelings for Aerith first. This would leave space for him to love both women without coming off as an opportunistic jerk.

This is essentially the dynamic with Locke/Rachel/Celes in FFVI. Locke is unable to move on with Celes or anyone else until he finally finds closure with Rachel. It’s a lovely scene that does not diminish his relationships with either woman. He loved Rachel. He will love Celes. What the game does not have him do is enter into a relationship into Celes first and then when the party arrives at the Phoenix Cave, have him suddenly remember ‘Oh shit, I’ve gotta deal with my baggage with Rachel before I can really move on.’ That would not paint him in a particularly positive light.

Speaking of other Final Fantasies, let’s take a look another sequel in the series set two years after the events of the original work, one that is clearly the story of its protagonist searching for their lost love. And guess what? Final Fantasy X-2 does not begin with Yuna shacked up and raising two kids with another dude. And it certainly doesn’t begin with his perspective of the whole situation when Yuna decides to search for Tidus.

Square Enix knows how to write these kind of stories when they want to, and it’s clearly not their intent for Cloud and Aerith. Again, the biggest obstacle in the way of a Cloud/Aerith endgame isn’t space and time or death, it’s the existence of Tifa Lockhart.

A reasonable question to ask would be, if SE is not trying to ignite debate over the love triangle, why make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith a part of Advent Children at all? Why invite that sort of confusion? Well, the answer here, like the answer in the OG, is that Aerith’s role in the sequel is much more than her relationship with Cloud.

In the OG, it wasn’t Cloud and the gang who managed to stop Sephiroth and Meteor in the end, it was Aerith from the Lifestream. In a two-hour long film, you do not have the time to set up a completely new villain who can believably end the world, and since you pretty much have to include Sephiroth, the main antagonist can really only be him. No one else in the party has been established to have any magical Cetra powers, and again, since that’s not something that can be effectively established in a two-hour long film, and since Aerith needs to appear somehow, it again needs to be her who will save the day.

Given the time constraints, this external conflict has to be connected with Cloud’s internal conflict. In the OG, Cloud’s emotional arc is in resolved in the Lifestream, and then we spend a few more hours hunting down the Huge Materia/remembering what Holy is before resolving the external conflict of stopping Meteor. In Advent Children, we do not have that luxury of time. These turning points have to be one and same. It is only after Aerith is “introduced” in the film when Cloud asks her for forgiveness that she is able to help in the fight against the Remnants. Thus the turning point for Cloud’s character arc and the external conflict are the same. It’s understandably economical storytelling, though I wouldn’t call it particularly good storytelling.

As much as Cloud feels guilt over both Zack and Aerith’s deaths, it’s only Aerith who can play this dual role in the film. Zack can appear to help resolve Cloud’s emotional arc, but since he has no special Cetra powers or anything, there’s little he can do to help in Cloud’s fight against the Remnants. More time would need to be spent contriving a reason why Cloud is able to defeat the Remnants now when he wasn’t before or explaining why Aerith can suddenly help from the Lifestream when she had been absent before. (I still don’t think the film does a particularly good job of explaining this part, but that is a conversation for another time).

Another reason why Zack could not play this role is because at the time of AC’s original release, all we knew of Cloud and Zack’s relationship was contained in an optional flashback at the Shinra mansion after Cloud returns from the Lifestream. If it was Zack who suddenly showed up at Cloud’s lowest point, most viewers, even many who played the original game, would probably have been confused, and the moment would have fallen flat. On the other hand, even the most casual fan would have been aware of Aerith and her connection to Cloud, with her death scene being among the most well-known gaming moments of all time. Moreover, Aerith’s death is directly connected to Sephiroth, who is once again the threat in AC, whereas Zack was killed by Shinra goons. Aerith serves multiple purposes in a way that Zack just cannot.

Despite all this, though Aerith is more important to the film as a whole, many efforts are made to suggest that Zack and Aerith are equally important to Cloud. One of the first scenes in the film is Cloud moping around Zack’s grave (And unlike the scene with Aerith in the Forgotten City, it isn’t directly connected with Cloud’s present storyline in any way). We have the aforementioned scene where Cloud has flashes of both Aerith’s and Zack’s deaths when he saves Tifa and Denzel. Cloud has a scene where he’s standing back to back with Zack, mirroring his scene with in the Forgotten City with Aerith, before the climax of his fight with Sephiroth. In the Lifestream, after Cloud “dies,” it’s both Aerith and Zack who are there to send him back. Before the film ends, Cloud sees both Aerith and Zack leaving the church.

Now, were all these Zack appearances a way to promote the upcoming spin-off game that he’s going to lead? Of course. But the creators surely would have known that having Zack play such a similar role in Cloud’s arc would make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith feel less special and thus complicating a romantic interpretation of said relationship. If they wanted to encourage a romantic reading of Cloud’s lingering feelings for Aerith, they would have given Zack his own distinct role in the film. Or rather, they wouldn’t have put Zack in the film at all, and they certainly wouldn’t have him lead his own game, but we’ll get to the Zack of it all later.

The funny thing is, in a way, Zack is portrayed as being more special to Cloud. Zack only exists in the film to interact with Cloud and encourage him. Meanwhile. Aerith also has brief interactions with Kadaj, the Geostigma children and even Tifa before the film’s end. Aerith is there to save the whole world. Zack is there just for Cloud. If it’s Cloud’s relationship with Aerith that’s meant to be romantic, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Let’s take a look at Tifa Lockhart. What role did she have to play in the FF7 sequel film? If, like some, you believed FF7 to be the Cloud/Aerith/Sephiroth show, then Tifa could have easily had a Barret-sized cameo in Advent Children. And honestly, she’s just a great martial artist. She has no special powers that would make her indispensable in a fight against Sephiroth. You certainly would not expect her to be the 2nd billed character in the film. Though of course, if you actually played through the Original Game with your eyes open, you would realize that Tifa Lockhart is instrumental to any story about Cloud Strife.

Unlike Aerith’s appearances, almost none of the suggestive scenes and dynamics between Cloud and Tifa had to be included in the film. As in, they serve no other plot related purpose and could have easily been cut from the final film if the creators weren’t trying to encourage a romantic interpretation of their relationship.

It feels inevitable now, but no one was expecting Cloud and Tifa to be living together and raising two kids. In the general consciousness, FF7 is Cloud and Sephiroth and their big swords and Aerith’s death. At the time, in the eyes of most fans and casual observers, Cloud and Tifa being together wasn’t a necessary part of the FF7 equation the way say, an epic fight between Cloud and Sephiroth would be. In fact, I don’t think even the biggest Cloti fans at the time would have imagined Cloud and Tifa living together would be their canon outcome in the sequel film.

Now can two platonic friends live together and raise two children together? Absolutely, but again Cloud and Tifa are not real people. They are fictional characters. A reasonable person (let’s use the legal definition of the term) who does not have brainworms from arguing over one of the dumbest debates on the Internet for 23 years would probably assume that two characters who were shown to be attracted to each other in the OG and who are now living together and raising two kids are in a romantic relationship. This is a reasonable assumption to make, and if SE wanted to leave Cloud’s romantic inclinations ambiguous, they simply would not be depicting Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in this manner. Cloud’s disrupted peace could have been a number of different things. He could have been a wandering mercenary, he could have been searching for a way to be reunited with Aerith. It didn’t have to be the family he formed with Tifa, but, then again, if you were actually paying attention to the story the OG was trying to tell, of course he would be living with Tifa.

Let’s also look at the scene where Cloud finds Tifa in the church after her fight with Loz. All the plot related information (who attacked her, Marlene being taken) is conveyed in the brief conversation they have before Cloud falls unconscious from Geostigma. What purpose do all the lingering shots of Cloud and Tifa in the flower bed in a Yin-Yang/non-sexual 69ing position serve if not to be suggestive of the type of relationship they have? It’s beautifully rendered but ultimately irrelevant to both the external and internal conflicts of the film.

Likewise, there is no reason why Cloud and Tifa needed to wake up in their children’s bedroom. No reason to show Cloud waking up with Tifa next to him in a way that almost makes you think they were in the same bed. And there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a close-up of Tifa’s hand with the Wolf Ring on her ring finger while she is admonishing Cloud during what sounds like a domestic argument (This ring again comes into focus when Tifa leads Denzel to Cloud at the church at the end - there are dozens of ways this scene could have been rendered, but this is the one that was chosen.) If it wasn’t SE’s intent to emphasize the family dynamic and the intimate nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship, these scenes would not exist.

Let’s also take a look at Denzel, the only new character in the AC (give or take the Remnants). Again, given the film’s brief runtime, the fact that they’re not only adding a new character but giving him more screen time than almost every other AVALANCHE member must mean that he’s pretty important. While Denzel does have an arc of his own, especially in ACC, he is intricately connected to Cloud and Tifa and solidifies the family unit that they’ve been forming in Edge. Marlene still has Barret, but with the addition of Denzel, the family becomes something more real albeit even more tenuous given his Geostigma diagnosis. Without Denzel in the picture, it’s a bit easier to interpret Cloud’s distance from Tifa as romantic pining for another woman, but now it just seems absurd. The stakes are so much higher. Cloud and Tifa are at a completely different stage in their lives from the versions of these characters we met early on in the OG who were entangled in a frivolous love triangle. And yet some people are still stuck trying to fit these characters into a childish dynamic that died at the end of disc one along with a certain someone.

All this is there in the film, at least the director’s cut, if you really squint. But since SE preferred to spend its time on countless action sequences that have aged as well as whole milk in lieu of spending a few minutes showing Cloud’s family life before he got Geostigma to establish the emotional stakes, or a beat or two more on his reconciliation with Tifa and the kids, people may be understandably confused about Cloud’s arc. Has Cloud just been a moping around in misery for the two years post-OG? The answer is no, though that can only really be found in the accompanying novellas, specifically Case of Tifa.

Concerning the novellas, which we apparently must read to understand said DVD sequel

I really don’t know how you can read through CoT and still think there is anything ambiguous about the nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. The “Because I have you this time,” Cloud telling Tifa he’ll remind her how to be strong when they’re alone, Cloud confidently agreeing when Marlene adds him to their family. Not to mention Barret and Cid’s brief conversation about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in Case of Barret, after which Cid comments that “women wear the pants,” which Barret then follows by asking Cid about Shera. Again, a reasonable person would assume the couple in question are in a romantic relationship, and if this wasn’t the intent, these lines would not be present. Especially not in a novella about someone else.

Some try to argue that CoT just shows how incompatible Cloud and Tifa are because it features a few low points in their relationship. I don’t think that’s Nojima’s intent. Even if it was, it certainly wouldn’t be to prove that Cloud loves Aerith. This isn’t how you tell that story. Why waste all that time disproving a negative rather than proving a positive? We didn’t spend hours in FF8 watching Rinoa’s relationship with Seifer fall apart to understand how much better off she is with Squall. If Cloud and Aerith is meant to be a love story, then tell their love story. Why tell the story of how Cloud is incompatible with someone else?

Part of the confusion may be because CoT doesn’t tell a complete story in and of itself. The first half of the story (before Cloud has to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City) acts as a sort of epilogue to the OG, while the second half of the story is something of a prologue to Advent Children (or honestly its missing Act One). And to state the obvious, conflict is inherent to any story worth telling. It can’t just be all fluff, that’s what the fanfiction is for.

Tifa’s conflict is her fear that the fragile little family they’ve built in Edge is going to fall apart. Thus we see her fret about Cloud’s distance, the way this affects Marlene, and Denzel’s sickness. There are certainly some low moments here --- Tifa telling Cloud to drink in his room, asking if he loves her -- all ways for the threat to seem more real, the outcome more uncertain, yet there’s only one way this conflict can be resolved. One direction to which their relationship can move.

Again, by the end of this story, both characters are supposed to be the best versions of themselves, to find their “happy” endings so to speak. Tifa could certainly find happiness outside of a relationship with Cloud. She could decide that they’ve given it a shot, but they’re better off as friends. She’s grateful for this experience and she’s learned from this, but now she’s ready to make a life for herself on her own. It would be a fine character arc, though not something the Final Fantasy series has been wont to do. However, that’s obviously not the case here as there’s no indication whatsoever that Tifa considers this as an option for herself. Nojima hasn’t written this off ramp into her journey. For Tifa, they’ll either become a real family or they won’t. Since this is a story that is going to have a happy ending, so of course they will, even if there are a lot of bumps along the way.

Unfortunately, with the Compilation being the unwieldy beast that this is, this whole arc has to be pieced together across a number of different works:

Tifa asking herself if they’re a real family in CoT

Her greatest fear seemingly come to life when Cloud leaves at the end of CoT/beginning of AC

Tifa explicitly asking Cloud if the reason they can’t help each other is because they’re not a real family during their argument in AC. Notably, even though Cloud is at his lowest point, he doesn’t confirm her fear. Instead he says he that he can’t help anyone, not even his family. Instead, he indirectly confirms that yes he does think they’re a family, even if is a frustrating moment still in that he’s too scared to try to save it.

The ending of AC where we see a new photo of Cloud smiling surrounded by Tifa and the kids and the rest of the AVALANCHE, next to the earlier photo we had seen of the four of them where he was wearing a more dour expression.

The ending of The Kids Are All Right, where Cloud, Tifa, Denzel and Marlene meet with Evan, Kyrie and Vits - and Cloud offers, unsolicited, that even if they’re not related by blood, they’re a family.

The ending of DVD extra ‘Reminiscence of FFVII’ where Cloud takes the day off and asks Tifa to close the bar so they can spend time together as a family as Tifa had wanted to do early in CoT

Cloud fears he’ll fail his family. Tifa fears it’ll fall apart. Cloud retreats into himself, pushing others away. Tifa neglects herself, not being able to say what she needs to say. In Advent Children, Tifa finally voices her frustrations. It’s then that Cloud finally confronts his fears. Like in the OG, Cloud and Tifa’s conflicts and character arcs are two sides of the same coin, and it’s only by communicating with each other are they able to resolve it. Though with the Compilation being an inferior work, it’s much less satisfying this time around. Such is the problem when you’re writing towards a preordained outcome (Cloud and Sephiroth duking it once again) rather than letting the story develop organically.

Some may ask, why mention Aerith so much (Cloud growing distant after delivering flowers to the Forgotten City, Cloud finding Denzel at Aerith’s church) if they weren’t trying to perpetuate the LTD? Well, as explained above, Aerith had to be in Advent Children, and since CoT is the only place where we get any insight into Cloud’s psyche, it’s here where Nojima expands on that guilt.

Again, this is a story that requires conflict, and what better conflict than the specter of a love rival? Notably, despite us having access to Tifa’s thoughts and fears, she never explicitly associates Cloud’s behavior with him pining after Aerith. Though it’s fair to say this fear is implied, if unwarranted.

If Cloud had actually been pining after Aerith this whole time, we would not be seeing it all unfold through Tifa’s perspective. You can depict a romance without drawing attention to the injured third party. We’re seeing all of this from Tifa’s POV, because it’s about Tifa’s insecurities, not the great tragic romance between Cloud and Aerith. Honestly, another reason we see this from Tifa’s perspective is because it’s dramatically more interesting. Because she’s insecure, she (and we the reader) wonder if there’s something else going on. Meanwhile, from Cloud’s perspective it would be straightforward and redundant, given what we see in AC. He’s guilty over Aerith’s death and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy.

Not to mention, the first time we encounter Aerith in CoT, Tifa is the one breaking down at her grave while Cloud is the one comforting her. Are we supposed to believe that he just forgot he was in love with Aerith until he had to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City?

And Aerith doesn’t just serve as a romantic obstacle. She’s also a symbol of guilt and redemption for both Cloud and Tifa. Neither think they have the right to be happy after all that’s happened (Aerith’s death being a big part of this), and through Denzel, who Cloud finds at Aerith’s church, they both see a chance to atone.

I do want to address Case of Lifestream: White because it’s only time in the entire Compilation where I’ve asked myself — what are they trying to achieve here? Now, I’d rather drink bleach than start debating the translation of ‘koibito’ again, but I did think it was a strange choice to specify the romantic nature of Aerith’s love for Cloud. I suppose it could be a reference her obvious attraction to Cloud in the OG, though calling it love feels like a stretch.

But nothing else in CoLW really gives me pause. It might be a bit jarring to see how much of it is Aerith’s thoughts of Cloud, but it makes sense when you consider the context in which it’s meant to be consumed. Unlike Case of Tifa or Case of Denzel, CoLW isn’t meant to be read on its own. It’s a few scant paragraphs in direct conversation with Case of Lifestream: Black. In CoLB, Sephiroth talks about his plan to return and end the world or whatever, and how Cloud is instrumental to his plan. Each segment of CoLW mirrors the corresponding segment of CoLB. Thus, CoLW has to be about Aerith’s plan to stop Sephiroth and the role Cloud must play in that. In both of these stories, Cloud is the only named character. It doesn’t mean that thoughts of Cloud consume all of Aerith’s afterlife. Case of Lifestream is only a tiny sliver of the story, a halfassed way to explain why in Advent Children the world is ending again and why Cloud has to be at the center of it all.

Notably, there is absolutely nothing in CoLW about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith. Even if it’s just speculation on her part as we see Sephiroth speculate about Cloud’s reactions in CoLB. Aerith can see what’s going on in the real world, but she says nothing about Cloud’s actions. If Cloud is really pining after her, trying to find a way to be reunited with her, wouldn’t this be the ideal story to show such devotion?

But it’s not there, because not only does it not happen, but because this story is not about Aerith’s relationship with Cloud. It is about how Aerith needs to see and warn Cloud in order to stop Sephiroth. By the end of Advent Children, that goal is fulfilled. Cloud gets his forgiveness. Aerith gets to see him again and helps him stop Sephiroth. There’s no suggestion that either party wants more. We finally have the closure that the OG lacked, and at no point does it confirm that Cloud reciprocated Aerith’s romantic feelings, even though there were plenty of opportunities to do so.

I don’t really know what else people were expecting. Advent Children isn’t a romantic drama. There’s not going to be a moment where Cloud explicitly tells Tifa, ‘I’ve never loved Aerith. It’s only been you all along.” This is just simply not the kind of story it is.

Though one late scene practically serves this function. When Cloud “dies” and Aerith finds him in the Lifestream, if there were any lingering romantic feelings between the two of them, this would be a beautiful bittersweet reunion. Maybe something about how as much as they want to be together, it’s not his time yet. Instead, it’s almost played off as a joke. Cloud calls her ‘Mother’, and Zack is at Aerith’s side, joking about how Cloud has no place there. This would be the perfect opportunity to address the romantic connection between Cloud and Aerith, but instead, the film elides this completely. Instead, it’s a cute afterlife moment between Aerith and Zack, and functionally allows Cloud to go back to where he belongs, to Tifa and the kids. Whatever Cloud’s feelings for Aerith were before, it’s transformed into something else.

Crisis Core -- or how Aerith finally gets her love story

The other relevant part of the Compilation is Crisis Core, which I will now touch on briefly (or at least brief for me). In the OG, Zack Fair was more plot device than character. We knew he was important to Cloud — enough that Cloud would mistake Zack’s memories for his own -- we knew he was important to Aerith — enough that she is initially drawn to Cloud due to his similarities to Zack — yet the nature of these relationships is more ambiguous. Especially his relationship with Aerith. From the little we learn of their relationship, it could have been completely one-sided on her part, and Zack a total cad. At least that’s the implication she leaves us with in Gongaga. We get the sense that she might not be the most reliable narrator on this point (why bring up an ex so often, unsolicited, if it wasn’t anything serious?) but the OG never confirms this either way.

Crisis Core clears this up completely. Not only is Zack portrayed as the Capital H Hero of his own game, but his relationships with Cloud and Aerith are two of the most important in the game. In fact, they are the basis for his heroic sacrifice at the game’s end: he dies trying to save Cloud’s life; he dies trying to return to Aerith.

Zack’s relationship with Aerith is a major subplot of the game. Not only that, but the details of said relationship completely recontextualizes what we know about the Aerith we see in the OG. Many of Aerith’s most iconic traits (wearing pink, selling flowers) are a direct product of this relationship, and more importantly, so many of the hallmarks of her early relationship with Cloud (him falling through her church, one date as a reward, a conversation in the playground) are a direct echo of her relationship with Zack.

A casual fling this was not. Aerith’s relationship with Zack made a deep impact on the character we see in the OG and clearly colored her interactions with Cloud throughout.

Crisis Core is telling Zack’s story, and Tifa is a fairly minor supporting character, yet it still finds the time to expand upon Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. Through their interactions with Zack, we learn just how much they were on each others’ minds during this time, and how they were both too shy to own up to these feelings. We also get a brief expansion on the moment Cloud finds Tifa injured in the reactor.

Meanwhile, given the point we are in the story’s chronology, Cloud and Aerith are completely oblivious of each other’s existence.

One may try to argue that none of this matters since all of this is in the past. While this argument might hold water if we arguing about real lives in the real world, FF7 is a work of fiction. Its creators decided that these would be events we would see, and that Zack would be the lens through which we’d see them. Crisis Core is not the totality of these characters’ lives prior to the event of the OG. Rather, it consists of moments that enhance and expand upon our understanding of the original work. We learn the full extent of Hojo’s experimentation and the Jenova project; we learn that Sephiroth was actually a fairly normal guy before he was driven insane when he uncovers the circumstances of his birth. We learn that Aerith was a completely different person before she met Zack, and their relationship had a profound impact on her character.

A prequel is not made to contradict the original work, but what it can do is recontexualize the story we already know and add a layer of nuance that may have not been obvious before. Thus, Sephiroth is transformed from a scary villain into a tragic figure who could have been a hero were it not for Hojo’s experiments. Aerith’s behavior too invites reinterpretation. What once seemed flirty and perhaps overtly forward now looks like the tragic attempts of a woman trying to recapture a lost love.

If Cloud and Aerith were meant to be the official couple of the Compilation of FF7, you absolutely would not be spending so much time depicting two relationships that will be moot by the time we get to the original work. You especially would not depict Zack and Aerith’s relationship in a way that makes Aerith’s relationship with Cloud look like a copy of the moments she had with her ex.

Additionally, with Zack’s relationship with Angeal, we can see, that within the universe of FF7, a protagonist being devastated over the death of a beloved comrade isn’t something that’s inherently romantic. Neither is it romantic for said dead comrade to lend a helping hand from the beyond.

SE would also expect some people to play Crisis Core before the OG. If Cloud and Aerith are the intended endgame couple, then SE would be asking the player to root for a guy to pursue the girlfriend of the man who gave his life for him. The same man who died trying to reunite with her. This is to say nothing of Cloud’s treatment of Tifa in this scenario. How could this possibly be the intent  for their most popular protagonist in the most popular entry of their most popular franchise?

What Crisis Core instead offers is something for fans of Aerith who may be disappointed that she was robbed of a great romance by her death. Well, she now gets that epic, tragic romance. Only it’s with Zack, not Cloud.

If SE intended for Cloud and Aerith to be the official couple of FF7, neither Zack nor Tifa would exist. They would not spend so much time developing Zack and Tifa into the multi-dimensional characters they are, only to be treated as nothing more than collateral damage in the wake of Cloud and Aerith’s great love. No, this is a Final Fantasy. SE want their main characters to have something of a happy ending after all of the tribulations they face. Cloud and Tifa find theirs in life. Zack and Aerith, as the ending of AC suggests, find theirs in death.

Cloud and Aerith’s relationship isn’t a threat to the Zack/Aerith and Cloud/Tifa endgame, nor is it a mere obstacle. Rather, it’s a relationship that actually deepens and strengthens the other two. Aerith is explicitly searching for her first love in Cloud, revealing just how deep her feelings for Zack ran. Cloud gets to live out his heroic SOLDIER fantasy with Aerith, a fantasy he created just to impress Tifa.

There are moments between Cloud and Aerith that may seem romantic when taken on its own, but viewed within the context of the whole narrative, ultimately reveal that they aren’t quite right for each other, and in each other, they’re actually searching for someone else.

This quadrangular dynamic reminds me a bit of one of my favorite classic films, The Philadelphia Story. (Spoilers for a film that came out in 1940 ahead) — The single most romantic scene in the film is between Jimmy Stewart’s and Katherine Hepburn’s characters, yet they’re not the ones who end up together. Even as their passions run, as the music swells, and we want them to end up together, we realize that they’re not quite right for each other. We know that it won’t work out.

More relevantly, we know this is true due to the existence of Cary Grant’s and Ruth Hussey’s characters, who are shown to carry a torch for Hepburn and Stewart, respectively. Grant and Hussey are well-developed and sympathetic characters. With the film being the top grossing film of the year, and made during the Code era, it’s about as “clean” of a narrative as you can get. There’s no way Grant and Hussey would be given such prominent roles just to be left heartbroken and in the cold by the film’s end.

Hepburn’s character (Tracy) pretty much sums it herself after some hijinks lead to a last minute proposal from Stewart’s character (Mike):

Mike: Will you marry me, Tracy?                      

Tracy: No, Mike. Thanks, but hmm-mm. Nope.

Mike: l've never asked a girl to marry me. l've avoided it. But you've got me all confused now. Why not?

Tracy: Because l don't think Liz [Hussey’s character] would like it...and l'm not sure you would...and l'm even a little doubtful about myself. But l am beholden to you, Mike. l'm most beholden.

Despite the fact that the film spends more time developing Hepburn and Stewart’s relationship than theirs with their endgame partners, it’s still such a satisfying ending. That’s because, even at the peak of their romance, we can see how Stewart needs someone like Hussey to ground his passionate impulses, and how Hepburn needs Grant, someone who won’t put her on a pedestal like everyone else. Hepburn and Stewart’s is a relationship that might feel right in the moment, but doesn’t quite work in the light of day.

I don’t think Cloud and Aerith share a moment that is nearly as romantic in FF7, but the same principle applies. What may seem romantic in the moment actually reveals how they’re right for someone else.

Even if Aerith lives and Cloud decides to pursue a relationship with her, it’s not going to be all puppies and roses ahead for them. Aerith would need to disentangle her feelings for Zack from her attraction to Cloud, and Cloud would still need to confront his feelings for Tifa, which were his main motivator for nearly half his life, before they can even start to build something real. This is messy work, good fodder for a prestige cable drama or an Oscar-baity indie film, but it has no place in a Final Fantasy. There simply isn’t the time. Not when the question on most players’ minds isn’t ‘Cloud does love?’ but ‘How the hell are they going to stop that madman and his Meteor that’s about to destroy the world?’

With Zerith’s depiction in Crisis Core, there’s a sort of bittersweet poetry in how the two relationships rhyme but can’t actually coexist. It is only because Zack is trying to return to Midgar to see Aerith that Cloud is able to reunite with Tifa, and the OG begins in earnest. In another world, Zack and Aerith would be the hero and heroine who saved the world and lived to tell the tale. They are much more the traditional archetypes - Zack the super-powered warrior who wants to be a Capital-H Hero, and Aerith, the last of her kind who reluctantly accepts her fate. Compared to these two, Cloud and Tifa aren’t nearly so special, nor their goals so lofty and noble. Cloud, after all, was too weak to even get into SOLDIER, and only wanted to be one, not for some greater good, but to impress the girl he liked. Tifa has no special abilities, merely learning martial arts when she grew wise enough to not wait around for a hero. On the surface, Cloud and Tifa are made of frailer stuff, and yet by luck or by fate, they’re the ones who cheat death time and time again, and manage to save the world, whereas the ones who should have the role, are prematurely struck down before they can finish the job. Cloud and Tifa fulfill the roles that they never asked for, that they may not be particularly suited for, in Zack and Aerith’s stead. There’s a burden and a beauty to it. Cloud and Tifa can live because Zack and Aerith did not.

All of this nuance is lost if you think Cloud and Aerith are meant to be the endgame couple. Instead, you have a pair succumbing to their basest desires, regardless of the selfless sacrifices their other potential paramours made for their sake. Zack and Tifa, and their respective relationships with Aerith and Cloud, are flattened into mere romantic obstacles. The heart wants what it wants, some may argue. While that may be true in real life, that is not necessarily the case in a work of fiction, especially not a Final Fantasy. The other canon Final Fantasy couples could certainly have had previous romantic relationships, but unless they have direct relevance to the their character arcs (e.g., Rachel to Locke), the games do not draw attention to them because they would be a distraction from the romance they are trying to tell. They’ve certainly never spent the amount of real estate FF7 spends in depicting Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith’s relationships.

At last…the Remake, and somehow this essay isn’t even close to being over

Finally, we come to the Remake. With the technological advancements made in the last 23 years and the sheer amount of hours they’re devoting to just the Midgar section this time around, you can almost look at the OG as an outline and the Remake as the final draft. With the OG being overly reliant on text to  do its storytelling, and the Remake having subtle facial expressions and a slew of cinematic techniques at its disposal, you might almost consider it an adaptation from a literary medium to a visual one. Our discussions are no longer limited to just what the characters are saying, but what they are doing, and even more importantly, how the game presents those actions. When does the game want us to pay attention? And what does it want us to pay attention to?

Unlike most outlines, which are read by a small handful of execs, SE has 23 years worth of reactions from the general public to gauge what works and what doesn’t work, what caused confusion, and what could be clarified. While FF7 is not a romance, the LTD remains a hot topic among a small but vocal part of the fanbase. It certainly is an area that could do with some clarifying in the Remake.

Since the Remake is not telling a new story, but rather retelling an existing story that has been in the public consciousness for over two decades, certain aspects that were treated as “twists” in the OG no longer have that same element of surprise, and would need to approached differently. For example, in the Midgar section of the OG, Shinra is treated as the main antagonist throughout. It’s only when we get to the top of the Shinra tower that Sephiroth is revealed as the real villain. Anyone with even a passing of knowledge of FF7 would be aware of Sephiroth so trying to play it off like a surprise in the Remake would be terribly anticlimactic. Thus, Sephiroth appears as early as Ch. 2 to haunt Cloud and the player throughout.

Likewise, many players who’ve never even touched the OG are probably aware that Aerith dies, thus her death can no longer be played for shock. While SE would still want the player to grow attached to Aerith so that her death has an emotional impact, there are diminishing returns to misdirecting the player about her fate, at least not in the same way it was done in the OG.

How do these considerations affect the how the LTD is depicted in the Remake? For the two of the biggest twists in the OG to land in the Remake — Aerith’s death and Cloud’s true identity in the Lifestream — the game needs to establish:

Aerith’s attraction to Cloud, specifically due to his similarities to Zack. This never needs to go past an initial attraction for the player to understand that the man whose memory Cloud was “borrowing” is Zack. Aerith’s feelings for Cloud can evolve into something platonic or even maternal by her end without the reveal in the Lifestream losing any impact.

Cloud’s love for Tifa. For the Lifestream sequence to land with an “Ooooh!” rather than a “Huh!?!?”, the Remake will need to establish that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to 1) motivate him to try to join SOLDIER in the first place 2) incentivize him to adopt a false persona because he fears that he isn’t the man she wants him to be 3) call him back to consciousness from Make poisoning twice 4) help him put his mind back together and find his true self. That’s a lot of story riding on one guy’s feelings!

The player’s love for Aerith so that her death will hurt. This can be done by making them invested in Aerith as a character by her own right, but also extends to the relationships she has with the other characters (not only Cloud).

What is not necessary is establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith. Now, would their doomed romance make her death hurt even more? Sure, but it could work just as well if Cloud if is losing a dear friend and ally, not a lover. Not to mention, her death also cuts short her relationships with Tifa, Barret, Red XII, etc. Bulking those relationships up prior to her death, would also make her loss more palpable. If anything, establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith would actually undermine the game’s other big twist. The game needs you to believe that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to drive his entire hero’s journey. If Cloud is shown falling in love with another woman in the span of weeks if not mere days, then the Lifestream scene would be much harder to swallow.

Cloud wavering between the two women made sense in the OG because the main way for the player to get to know Aerith was through her interactions with Cloud. That is no longer the case in the Remake. Cloud is still the protagonist, and the player character for the vast majority of the game, but there are natural ways for the player to get to know Aerith outside of her dialogue exchanges with Cloud. Unless SE considers the LTD an integral part of FF7’s DNA, then for the sake of story clarity, the LTD doesn’t need to exist.

How then does the Remake clarify things?

I’m not going go through every single change in the Remake — there are far too many of them, and they’ve been documented elsewhere. Most of the changes are expansions or adaptations (what might make sense for super-deformed chibis would look silly for realistic characters, e.g., Cloud rolling barrels in the Church has now become him climbing across the roof support). What is expanded and how it’s adapted can be telling, but what is more interesting are the additions and removals. Not just for what takes place in the scenes themselves, but how their addition or removal changes our understanding of the narrative as a whole vis-a-vis the story we know from the OG.

Notably, one of the features that is not expanded upon, but rather diminished, is player choice. In the OG, the player had a slew of dialogue options to choose from, especially during the Midgar portion of the game. Not only did it determine which character would go on a date with Cloud at the Gold Saucer, but it also made the player identify with Cloud since they’re largely determining his personality during this stage. Despite the technological advances that have made this level of optionality the norm in AAA games, the Remake gives the player far fewer non-gameplay related choices, and only really the illusion of choice as a nod to the OG, but they don’t affect the story of the game in any meaningful way. You get a slightly different conversation depending on the choice, but you have to buy the Flower, Tifa has to make you a drink.

So much of what fueled the LTD in the OG came from this mechanic, which is now largely absent in the Remake. Almost every instance where there was a dialogue branch in the OG has become a single, canon scenario in the Remake that favors Tifa (e.g., having the choice of giving the flower to Tifa or Marlene in the OG, to Cloud giving the flower to Tifa in the Remake). Similarly, for the only meaningful choice you make in the Remake — picking Tifa or Aerith in the sewers — Cloud is now equidistant to both girls, whereas in the OG, his starting point was much closer to Aerith. In the OG, player choice allowed you to largely determine Cloud’s personality, and the girl he favored — and seemingly encouraged you to choose Aerith in many instances. In the Remake, Cloud is now his own character, not who the player wants him to be. And this Cloud, well, he sure seems to have a thing for Tifa.

In fact, one of the first changes in the Remake is the addition of Jessie asking Cloud about his relationship with Tifa, and Cloud’s brief flashback to their childhood together. In the OG, Tifa isn’t mentioned at all during the first reactor mission, and we don’t see her until we get to Sector 7.

Not only does this scene reveal Tifa’s importance to Cloud much earlier on than in the OG, but it sets up a sort of frame of reference that colors Cloud’s subsequent interactions. Even as Jessie kind of flirts with him throughout the reactor mission, even with his chance meeting Aerith in Sector 8, in the back of your mind, you might be thinking — wait what about his relationship with this Tifa character? What if he’s already spoken for?

Think about how this plays out in the OG. Jessie is pretty much a non-entity, and Cloud has his meet-cute with the flower girl before we’re even aware that Tifa exists. It’s hard to get too invested in his interactions with Tifa, when you know he has to meet the flower girl again, and you’re waiting for that moment, because that’s when the game will start in earnest.

After chapter 1 of the Remake, a new player may be asking — who is this Tifa person, and, echoing Jessie’s question, what kind of relationship does she have with Cloud? It’s a question that’s repeated when Barret mentions her before they set the bomb, and again when Barret specifies Seventh Heaven is where Tifa works — and the game zooms in on Cloud’s face — when they arrive in Sector 7.

It’s when we finally meet her at Seventh Heaven in Ch. 3 that we feel, ah now, this game has finally begun.

It’s also interesting how inorganically this question is introduced in the Remake. Up until that moment, the dialogue and Cloud are all business. Then, as they’re waiting for the gate to open, Jessie asks about Tifa completely out of the blue, and Cloud, all of a sudden, is at a lost for words, and has the first of many flashbacks. That this moment is a bit incongruous shows the effort SE made to establish Tifa’s importance to the game and to Cloud early on.

One of the biggest changes in the Remake is the addition of the events in Ch. 3 and 4. Unlike what happens in Ch. 18, Ch. 3 and 4 feel like such a natural extension of the OG’s story that many players may not even realize that SE has added an whole day’s and night’s worth of events to the OG’s story. While not a drastic change, it does reshape our understanding of subsequent events in the story, namely Cloud’s time spent alone with Aerith.

In the OG, we rush from one reactor mission to the next, with no real time to explore Cloud’s character or his relationships with any of the other characters in between. When he crashes through the church, he gets a bit of a breather. We see a different side of him with Aerith. Since we have nothing else to compare it to, many might assume that his relationship with Aerith is special. That she brings something out of him that no one else can.

That is no longer the case in the Remake. While Cloud’s time in Sector 5 with Aerith remains largely unchanged though greatly expanded, it no longer feels  “special.” So many of the beats that seemed exclusive to his relationship with Aerith in the OG, we’ve now already seen play out with both Tifa and the other members of AVALANCHE long before he meets Aerith.

Cloud tells the flowers to listen to Aerith; he’s told Tifa he’s listening if she wants to talk; told Bigg’s he wants to hear the story of Jessie’s dad. Cloud offers to walk Aerith back home; he offered the same to Wedge. Cloud smiles at Aerith; he’s already smiled at Tifa and AVALANCHE a number of times.

Now, I’m under no illusion that SE added these chapters solely to diminish Aerith’s importance to Cloud (other than the obvious goal of making the game longer, I imagine they wanted the player to spend more time in Sector 7 and more time with the other AVALANCHE members so that the collapse of the Pillar and their deaths have more weight), but they certainly must have realized that this would be one effect. If pushing Cloud/Aerith’s romance had been a goal with the Remake, this would be a scenario they would try to avoid. Notably, the other place where time has been added - the night in the Underground Shinra Lab, and the day helping other people out around the slums — are also periods of time when Aerith is absent.

Home Sweet Slums vs. Budding Bodyguard

Since most of the events in Ch. 3 were invented for the Remake, and thus we have nothing in the OG to compare it to (except to say that something is probably better than nothing), I thought it would be more interesting to compare it to Ch. 8. Structurally, they are nearly identical — Cloud doing sidequests around the Sectors with one of the girls as his guide. Extra bits of dialogue the more sidequests you complete, with an optional story event if you do them all. Do Cloud’s relationships with each girl progress the same way in both chapters? Is the Remake just Final Waifu Simulator 2020 or are they distinct, reflecting their respective roles in the story as a whole?

A lot of what the player takes away from these chapters is going to be pretty subjective (Is he annoyed with her or is he playing hard to get), yet the vibes of the two chapters are quite different. This is because in Ch. 3, the player is getting to know Tifa through her relationship with Cloud; in Ch. 8; the player is getting to know Aerith as a character on her own.

What do I mean by this? Let’s take Cloud’s initial introduction into each Sector. In Ch. 3, it’s a straight shot from Seventh Heaven to Stargazer Heights punctuated by a brief conversation where Tifa asks Cloud about the mission he was just on. We don’t learn anything new about Tifa’s character here. Instead we hear Cloud recount the mission we already saw play out in detail in Ch. 1 But it’s through this conversation that we get a glimpse of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship — unlike the reticent jerk he was with Avalanche, this Cloud is much more responsive and even tries to reassure her in his own stilted way. We also know that they have enough of a past together that Tifa can categorize him as “not a people person” — an assessment to which Cloud agrees. Slowly, we’re getting an answer to the question Jessie posed in Ch. 1 — just what kind of relationship does Cloud have with Tifa?

In Ch. 8, Aerith leads Cloud on a roundabout way through Sector 5, and stops, unprompted, to talk about her experiences helping at the restaurant, helping out the doctor, and helping with the orphans at the Leaf House. It’s not so much a conversation as a monologue. Cloud isn’t the one who inquires about these relationships, and more jarringly, he doesn’t respond until Aerith directly asks him a question (interestingly enough, it’s about the flower she gave him…which he then gave to Tifa). Here, the game is allowing the player to learn more about the kind of person Aerith is. Cloud is also learning about Aerith at the same time, but with his non-reaction, either the game itself is indifferent to Cloud’s feelings towards Aerith or it is deliberately trying to portray Cloud’s indifference to Aerith.

The optional story event you can see in each chapter after completing all the side quests is also telling. In Ch. 3, “Alone at Last” is almost explicitly about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. It’s bookended by two brief scenes between Marle and Cloud — the first in which she lectures him about how he should treat Tifa almost like an overprotective in-law, the second after they return downstairs and Marle awards Cloud with an accessory “imbued with the fervent desire to be by one’s side for eternity” after he makes Tifa smile. In between, Cloud and Tifa chat alone in her room. Tifa finally gets a chance to ask Cloud about his past and they plan a little date to celebrate their reunion. There is also at least the suggestion that Cloud was expecting something else when Tifa asked him to her room.

In Ch. 8’s “The Language of Flowers,” Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is certainly part of the story — unlike earlier in the chapter, Cloud actually asks Aerith about what she’s doing and even supports her by talking to the flowers too, but the other main objective of this much briefer scene is to show Aerith’s relationship with the flowers and of her mysterious Cetra powers (though we don’t know about her ancestry just yet). Like a lot of Aerith’s dialogue, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and foreboding in her words. If anything, it’s almost as if Cloud is playing the Marle role to the flowers, as an audience surrogate to ask Aerith about her relationship with the flowers so that she can explain. Also, there’s no in-game reward that suggests what the scene was really about.

If there’s any confusion about what’s going on here, just compare their titles “Alone At Last” vs. “The Language of Flowers.”

I’ll try not to bring my personal feelings into this, but there’s just something so much more satisfying about the construction of Ch. 3. This is some real storytelling 101 shit, but I think a lot of it due to just how much set up and payoff there is, and how almost all of said payoff deepens our understanding of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship:

Marle: Cloud meets Tifa’s overprotective landlady towards the beginning of the chapter. She is dubious of his character and his relationship with TIfa. This impression does not change the second time they meet even though Tifa herself is there to mediate. It’s only towards the end of the chapter, after all the sidequests are complete, that this tension is resolved. Marle gives Cloud a lecture about how he should be treating Tifa, which he seems to take to heart. And Cloud finally earns Marle’s begrudging approval after he emerges from their rooms with a chipper-looking Tifa in tow.

Their past: For their first in-game interaction, Cloud casually brings up that fact that it’s been “Five years” since they’ve last, which seem to throw Tifa off a bit. As they’re replacing filters, Cloud asks Tifa what she’s been up to in the time since they’ve been apart, and Tifa quickly changes the subject. Tifa tries to ask Cloud about his life “after he left the village,” at the Neighborhood Watch HQ, and this time he’s the one who seems to be avoiding the subject. It’s only after all the Ch. 3 sidequests are complete, and they're alone in her room that Tifa finally gets the chance to ask her question. A question which Cloud still doesn’t entirely answer. This question remains unresolved, and anyone’s played the OG will know that it will remain unresolved for some time yet, as it is THE question of Cloud’s story as a whole.

The lessons: Tifa starts spouting off some lessons for life in the slums as she brings Cloud around the town, though it’s unclear if Cloud is paying attention or taking them to heart. After completing the first sidequest, Cloud repeats one of these sayings back to her, confirming that he’s been listening all along. By the end of the chapter, Cloud is repeating these lessons to himself, even when Tifa isn’t around. These lessons extend beyond this chapter, with Cloud being a real teacher’s pet, asking Tifa “Is this a lesson” in Ch. 10 once they reunite.

The drink: When Cloud first arrives at Seventh Heaven, Tifa plays hostess and asks him if he wants anything, but it seems he’s only interested in his money. After exploring the sector a bit, Tifa again tries to play the role of cheery bartender, offering to make him a cocktail at the bar, but Cloud sees through this facade, and they carry on. Finally, after the day’s work is done, to tide Cloud over while she’s meeting with AVALANCHE, Tifa finally gets the chance to make him a drink. No matter, which dialogue option the player chooses, Tifa and Cloud fall into the roles of flirty bartender and patron quite easily. Who would have thought this was possible from the guy we met in Ch. 1?

This dynamic is largely absent in Ch. 8, except perhaps exploring Aerith’s relationship with the flowers, which “pays off” in the “Language of Flowers” event, but again, that scene is primarily about Aerith’s character rather than her relationship with Cloud. The orphans and the Leaf House are a throughline of the chapter, but they are merely present. There’s no clear progression here as was the case with in Ch. 3. Sure, the kids admire Cloud quite a bit after he saves them, but it’s not like they were dubious of his presence before. They barely paid attention to him. In terms of the impact the kids have on Cloud’s relationship with Aerith, there isn’t much at all. Certainly nothing like the role Marle plays in developing his relationship with Tifa.

The thing is, there are plenty of moments that could have been set ups, only there’s no real follow through. Aerith introduces Cloud around town as her bodyguard, and some people like the Doctor express dubiousness of his ability to do the job, but even after we spend a whole day fighting off monsters, and defeating Rude, there’s no payoff. Not even a throwaway “Wow, great job bodyguarding” comment. Same with the whole “one date” reward. Other than a quick reference on the way to Sector 5, and Aerith threatening to reveal the deal to cajole Cloud into helping her gather flowers, it’s never brought up again, in this chapter, or the rest of the game.

Aerith also makes a big stink about Cloud taking the time to enjoy Elmyra’s cooking. This is after Cloud is excluded from AVALANCHE’s celebration in Seventh Heaven and after he misses out on Jessie’s mom’s “Midgar Special” with Biggs and Wedge. So this could have been have been the set up to Cloud finally getting to experience a nice, domestic moment where he feels like he’s part of a family. And this dinner does happen! Only…the Remake skips over it entirely. Which is quite a strange choice considering that almost every other waking moment of Cloud’s time in Midgar has been depicted in excruciating detail. SE has decided that either whatever happened in this dinner between these three characters is irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell, or they’ve deliberately excluded this scene from the game so that the player wouldn’t get any wrong ideas from it (e.g., that Cloud is starting to feel at home with Aerith).

Speaking of home, the Odd Jobs in Ch. 3 feel a bit more meaningful outside of just the gameplay-related rewards because they’re a way for Cloud to improve his reputation as he considers building a life for himself in Sector 7. This intent is implicit as Tifa imparts upon him the life lessons for surviving the slums, and then explicit, when Tifa asks him if he’s going to “stick around a little longer” outside of Seventh Heaven and he answers maybe. (It is later confirmed when Cloud and Tifa converse in his room in Ch. 4 after he remembers their promise).

Despite Aerith’s endeavors to extend their time together, there’s no indication that Cloud is planning to put down roots in Sector 5, or even return. Not even after doing all the Odd Jobs. If anything, it’s just the opposite — after 3 Odd Jobs, Aerith, kind of jokingly tells Cloud “don’t think you can rely on me forever.” This is a line that has a deeper meaning for anyone who knows Aerith’s fate in the OG, but Cloud seems totally fine with the outcome. Similarly, at the end of the Chapter 8, Elmyra asks Cloud to leave and never speak to Aerith again — a request to which he readily agrees.

Adding to the different vibes of the Chapters are the musical themes that play in the background. In Ch. 3, it’s the “Main Theme of VII”, followed by “On Our Way” — two tracks that instantly recall the OG. While the Main Theme is a bit melancholy, it's also familiar. It feels like home. In Ch. 8, we have an instrumental version of ‘Hollow’ - the new theme written for the Remake. While, it’s a lovely piece, it’s unfamiliar and honestly as a bit anxiety inducing (as is the intent).

(A quick aside to address the argument that this proves ‘Hollow’ is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith:

Which of course doesn’t make any damn sense because he hasn’t even lost Aerith at this point the story. Even if you want to argue that there is so timey-wimey stuff going on and the whole purpose of the Remake is to rewrite the timeline so that Cloud doesn’t lose Aerith around — shouldn’t there be evidence of this desire outside of just the background music? Perhaps, in Cloud’s actions during the Chapter which the song plays — shouldn’t he dread being parted from her, shouldn’t he be the one trying to extend their time together? Instead, he’s willing to let her go quite easily.

The more likely explanation as to why “Hollow” plays in Ch. 8 is that since the “Main Theme of FFVII”  already plays in Ch. 3, the other “main theme” written for the Remake is going to play in the other chapter with a pseudo-open world vibe. If you’re going to say “Hollow” is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith then you’d have to accept that the Main Theme of the entire series is about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa, which would actually make a bit more sense given that is practically Cloud’s entire character arc.)

Both chapters contain a scripted battle that must be completed before the chapter can end. They both contain a shot where Cloud fights side by side with each of the girls.

Here, Cloud and Tifa are both in focus during the entirety of this shot.

Here, the focus pulls away from Cloud the moment Aerith enters the frame.

I doubt the developers expected most players to notice this particular technique, but it reflects the subtle differences in the way these two relationships are portrayed. By the end of Ch. 3, Cloud and Tifa are acting as one unit. By the end of Ch. 8, even when they’re together, Cloud and Aerith are still apart.

A brief (lol) overview of some meaningful changes from the OG

One of the most significant changes in the Sector 7 chapters is how The Promise flashback is depicted. In the OG, Tifa is the one who has to remind Cloud of the Promise, in a rather pushy way, and whether Cloud chooses to join the next mission to fulfill his promise to her or because Barret is giving him a raise feels a bit more ambiguous.

In the Remake, the Promise has it’s own little mini-arc. It’s first brought up at the end of Ch. 3 when Cloud talks to Tifa about her anxieties about the upcoming mission. Tifa subtly references the Promise by mentioning that she’s “in a pitch” — a reference that goes over Cloud’s head. It’s only in Ch. 4, in the middle of a mission with Biggs and Wedge, where Tifa is no where in sight, that a random building fan reminds him of the Nibelheim water tower and the Promise he made to Tifa there. There’s also another brief flashback to that earlier moment in the bar when Tifa mentions she’s in a “pinch.” Again, the placement of this particular flashback at this particular moment feels almost jarring. And the flashback to the scene in the bar — a flashback to a scene we’ve already seen play out in-game — is the only one of its kind in the Remake. SE went out of the way to show that this particular moment is very important to Cloud and the game as whole. It’s when Cloud returns to his room, and Tifa asks him if he’s planning to stay in Midgar, that this mini-arc is finally complete. He brings up the Promise on his own, and makes it explicit that the reason he’s staying is for her. It’s to fulfill his Promise to her, not for money or for AVALANCHE — at this point, he’s not even supposed to be going on the next mission.

The Reactor 5 chapters are greatly expanded, but there aren’t really any substantive changes other than the addition of the rather intimate train roll scene between and Cloud and Tifa, which adds nothing to the story except to establish how horny they are for each other. We know this is the case, of course, because if you go out of your way to make Cloud look like an incompetent idiot and let the timer run out, you can avoid this scene altogether. But even in that alternate scene, Cloud’s concern for Tifa is crystal clear.

Ch. 8 also plays out quite similarly to the OG for the most part, though Cloud’s banter with Aerith on the rooftops doesn’t feel all that special since we’ve already seen him do the same with Tifa, Barret and the rest of AVALANCHE. The rooftops is the first place Cloud laughs in the OG. In the Remake, while Cloud might not have straight out laughed before, he’s certainly smiled quite a bit in the preceding chapters. Also, with the addition of voice acting and realistic facial expressions, that “laughter” in the Remake comes off much more sarcastic than genuine.

It’s also notable that in the Remake, Cloud vocally protests almost every time Aerith tries to extend their time together. In the OG, Cloud says nothing in these moments, which the player could reasonably interpret as assent.

One major change in the Remake is how Aerith learns of Tifa’s existence. In the OG, Cloud mentions that he wants to go back to Tifa’s bar, prompting Aerith to ask him about his relationship with her. In the Remake, Cloud calls Tifa’s name after having a random flashback of Child Tifa as he’s walking along with some kids. Again the insertion of said flashback is a bit jarring, prompting Aerith to understandably ask Cloud about just who this Tifa is. In the OG, this exchange served to show Aerith’s jealousy and her interest in Cloud. In the Remake, it’s all about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa and his inability to articulate them. As for Aerith, I suppose you can still read her reaction as jealous, though simple curiosity is a perfectly reasonable way to read it too. It plays out quite similarly to Aerith asking Cloud about who he gave the flower to. Her follow ups seem indicate that she’s merely curious about who this recipient might be rather than showing that she’s upset/jealous of the fact that said person exists.

For the collapsed tunnel segment, the Remake adds the recurring bit of Aerith and Cloud trying to successfully complete a high-five. While this is certainly a way to show them getting closer, it’s about least intimate way that SE could have done so. Just think about the alternatives — you could have Cloud and Aerith sharing brief tidbits of their lives after each mechanical arm, you could have them trying to reach for each other’s hand. Instead, SE chose an action that is we’ve seen performed between a number of different platonic buddies, and an action that Aerith immediately performs with Tifa upon meeting her. Not to mention, even while they are technically getting closer, Cloud still rejects (or at least tries to) Aerith’s invitations to extend their time together twice — at the fire and at the playground.

One aspect from these two Chapters that does has plenty of set up and a satisfying payoff is Aerith’s interest in Cloud’s SOLDIER background. You have the weirdness of Aerith already knowing that Cloud was in SOLDIER without him mentioning it first, followed by Elmyra’s antipathy towards SOLDIERs in general, not to mention Aerith actively fishing for information about Cloud’s time in SOLDIER. (For players who’ve played Crisis Core, the reason for her behavior is even more obvious, with her “one date” gesture mirroring Zack’s, and her line to Cloud in front of the tunnel a near duplicate of what she says to Zack — at least in the original Japanese).

Finally, at the playground, it’s revealed that the reason for all this weirdness is because Aerith’s first love was also a SOLDIER who was the same rank as Cloud. Unlike in the OG, Cloud does not exhibit any potential jealousy by asking about the nature of her relationship, and Aerith doesn’t try to play it off by dismissing the seriousness. In fact, with the emotional nuance we can now see on her face, we can understand the depth of her feelings even if she cannot articulate them.

This is the first scene in the Remake where Cloud and Aerith have a genuine conversation. Thus, finally, Cloud expresses some hesitation before he leaves her — and as far as he knows, this could be the last time they see each other. You can interpret this hesitation as romantic longing or it could just as easily be Cloud being a bit sad to part from a new friend. Regardless, it’s notable that scene is preceded by one where Aerith is talking about her first love who she clearly isn’t over, and followed by a scene where Cloud sprints across the screen, without a backwards glance at Aerith, after seeing a glimpse of Tifa through a tiny window in a Chocobo cart that’s about a hundred yards away.

The Wall Market segment in the Remake is quite explicitly about Cloud’s desire to save Tifa. In the OG, Aerith has no trouble getting into Corneo’s mansion on her own, so I can see how someone could misinterpret Cloud going through all the effort to dress as a woman to protect Aerith from the Don’s wiles (though of course, you would need to ask, why they trying to infiltrate the mansion in the first place?). In the Remake, Cloud has to go through herculean efforts to even get Aerith in front of the Don. Everyone who is aware of Cloud’s cause, from Sam to Leslie to Johnny to Andrea to Aerith herself, comments on how hard he’s working to save Tifa and how important she must be to him for him to do so. In case there’s any confusion, the Remake also includes a scene where Cloud is prepared to bust into the mansion on his own, leaving Aerith to fend for herself, after Johnny comes with news that Tifa is in trouble.

Both Cloud and Aerith get big dress reveals in the Remake. If you get Aerith’s best dress, Cloud’s reaction can certainly be read as one of attraction, but since the game continues on the same regardless of which dress you get, it’s not meant to mark a shift in Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Rather, it’s a reward for the player for completing however many side quests in Ch. 8, especially since the Remake incentives the player to get every dress and thus see all of Cloud’s reactions by making it a Trophy and including it in the play log.

A significant and very welcome change from the OG to the Remake is Tifa and Aerith’s relationship dynamic. In the OG, the girls’ first meeting in Corneo’s mansion starts with them fighting over Cloud (by pretending not to fight over Cloud). In the Remake, the sequence of events is reversed so that it starts off with Cloud’s reunion with Tifa (again emphasizing that the whole purpose of the infiltration is because Cloud wants to save Tifa). Then when Aerith wakes, she’s absolutely thrilled to make Tifa’s acquaintance, hardly acknowledging Cloud at all. Tifa is understandably more wary at first, but once they start working together, they become fast friends.

Also interesting is that from the moment Aerith and Tifa meet, almost every instance where Cloud could be shown worrying about Aerith or trying to comfort Aerith is given to Tifa instead. In the OG, it’s Cloud who frets about Aerith getting involved in the plot to question the Don, and regrets getting her mixed up in everything once they land in the sewers. In the Remake, those very same reservations are expressed by Tifa instead. Tifa is the one who saves Aerith when the platform collapses in the sewer. Tifa is the one who emotionally comforts Aerith after they’re separated in the train graveyard. (Cloud might be the one who physically saves her, but he doesn’t even so much give her a second glance to check on her well-being before he runs off to face Eligor. He leaves that job for Tifa). It almost feels like the Remake is going out of its way to avoid any moments between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic. In fact, after Corneo’s mansion, unless you get Aerith’s resolution, there are almost no one-on-one interactions at all between Cloud and Aerith. Such is not the case with Cloud and Tifa. In fact, right after defeating Abzu in the sewers, Cloud runs after Tifa, and asks her if what she’s saying is one of those slum lessons — continuing right where they left off.

Ch. 11 feels like a wink-wink nudge-nudge way to acknowledge the LTD. You have the infamous shot of the two girls on each of Cloud’s arms, and two scenes where Cloud appears as if he’s unable to choose between them when he asks them if they’re okay. Of course, in this same Chapter, you have a scene during the boss fight with the Phantom where Cloud actually pulls Tifa away from Aerith, leaving Aerith to defend herself, for an extended sequence where he tries to keep Tifa safe. This is not something SE would include if their intention is to keep Cloud’s romantic interest ambiguous or if Aerith is meant to be the one he loves. Of course, Ch. 11 is not the first we see of this trio’s dynamic. We start with Ch. 10, which is all about Aerith and Tifa’s friendship. Ch. 11 is a nod to the LTD dynamic in the OG, but it’s just that, a nod, not an indication the Remake is following the same path. Halfway through Ch. 11, the dynamic completely disappears.

Ch. 12 changes things up a bit from the OG. Instead of Cloud and Tifa ascending the pillar together, Cloud goes up first. Seemingly just so that we can have the dramatic slow-mo handgrab scene between the two of them when Tifa decides to run after Cloud — right after Aerith tells her to follow her heart.

The Remake also shows us what happens when Aerith goes to find Marlene at Seventh Heaven — including the moment when Aerith sees the flower she gave Cloud by the bar register, and Aerith is finally able to connect the dots. After seeing Cloud be so cagey about who he gave the flower to, and weird about his relationship with Tifa, and after seeing how Cloud and Tifa act around each other. It finally makes sense. She’s figured it out before they have. It’s a beautiful payoff to all that set up. Any other interpretation of Aerith’s reaction doesn’t make a lick of sense, because if it’s to indict she’s jealous of Tifa, where is all the set up for that? Why did the Remake eliminate all the moments from the OG where she had been noticeably jealous before? Without this, that interpretation makes about as much sense as someone arguing Aerith is smiling because she’s thinking about a great sandwich she had the night before. In case anyone is confused, the scene is preceded by a moment where Aerith tells Tifa to follow her heart before she goes after Cloud, and followed by the moment where Cloud catches Tifa via slow-motion handgrab.

On the pillar itself, there are so many added moments of Cloud showing his concern for Tifa’s physical and emotional well-being. Even when they find Jessie, as sad as Cloud is over Jessie’s death, the game actually spends more time showing us Cloud’s reaction to Tifa crying over Jessie’s death, and Cloud’s inability to comfort her. Since so much of this is physical rather than verbal, this couldn’t have effectively been shown in the OG with its technological limitations.

After the pillar collapses, we start off with a couple of other moments showing Cloud’s concern over Tifa — watching over her as she wakes, his dramatic fist clench while he watches Barret comfort Tifa in a way he cannot. There is also a subtle but important change in the dialogue. In the OG, Tifa is the one who tells Barret that Marlene is safe because she was with Aerith. Cloud is also on his way to Sector 5, but it’s for the explicit purpose of trying to save Aerith, which we know because Tifa asks. In the Remake, Tifa is too emotionally devastated to comfort Barret about Marlene. Cloud, trying to help in the only way he can, is now the one to tell Barret about Marlene. Leading them to Sector 5 is no longer about him trying to help Aerith, but about him reuniting Barret with his daughter. Again, another moment where Cloud shows concern about Aerith in the OG is eliminated from the Remake.

Rather than going straight from Aerith’s house to trying to figure out a way into the Shinra building to find Aerith, the group takes a detour to check out the ruins of Sector 7 and rescue Wedge from Shinra’s underground lab. It’s only upon seeing the evidence of Shinra’s inhumane experimentation firsthand that Cloud articulates to Elmyra the need to rescue Aerith. In the OG, they never sought out Elmyra’s permission, and Tifa explicitly asks to join Cloud on his quest. Rescuing Aerith is framed as primarily Cloud’s goal, Tifa and Barret are just along for the ride.

In the Remake, all three wait until Elymra gives them her blessing, and it’s framed (quite literally) as the group’s collective goal as opposed to just Cloud’s.

In the aptly named Ch. 14 resolutions, each marks the culmination of the character’s arc for the Part 1 of Remake. While their arcs are by no means complete, they do offer a nice preview of what their ultimate resolutions will be.

With the exception of Tifa’s, these resolutions are primarily about the character themselves. Their relationships with Cloud are secondary. Each resolution marks a change in the character themselves, but not necessarily a change in Cloud’s relationship with said character. Barret recommits to AVALANCHE’s mission and his role as a leader despite the deep personal costs. Aerith’s is full of foreshadowing as she accept her fate and impending death and decides to make the most of the time she has left. After trying to put aside her own feelings for the sake of others the whole time, Tifa finally allows herself to feel the full devastation of losing her home for the second time. Like her ultimate resolution in the Lifestream that we’ll see in about 25 years, Cloud is the only person she can share this sentiment with because he was the only person who was there.

Barret does not grow closer to Cloud through his resolution. Cloud has already proved himself to him by helping out on the pillar and reuniting him with Marlene. Barret resolution merely reveals that Barret is now comfortable enough with Cloud to share his past.

Similarly, Cloud starts off Aerith’s resolution with an intent to go rescue her, and ends with that intent still intact. Aerith is more open about her feelings here than before, it being a dream and all, but these feelings aren’t something that developed during this scene.

The only difference is during Tifa’s resolution. Cloud has been unable to emotionally comfort Tifa up until this point. It’s only when Tifa starts crying and rests her head upon his shoulder that he is able to make a change, to make a choice and hug her. Halfway through Tifa’s resolution, the scene shifts its focus to Cloud, his inaction and eventual action. Notably, the only time we have a close-up of any character during all three resolutions (I’ll define close-up here as a shot where a character’s face takes up half or more of the shot), are three shots of Cloud when he’s hugging/trying to hug Tifa. Tifa’s resolution is the only one where Cloud arcs.

What of the whole “You can’t fall in love with me” line in Aerith’s resolution? Why would SE include that if not to foreshadow Cloud falling in love with Aerith? Or indicate that he has already? Well, you can’t just take the dialogue on its own, you how to look at how these lines are framed. Notably, when she says “you can’t fall in love with me,” Aerith is framed at the center of the shot, and almost looks like she’s directly addressing the player. It’s as much a warning for the player as it is for Cloud, which makes sense if you know her fate in the OG.

This is followed directly by her saying “Even if you think you have…it’s not real.” In this shot, it’s back to a standard shot/reverse shot where she is the left third of the frame. She is addressing Cloud here, which, again if you’ve played the OG, is another bit of heavy foreshadowing. The reason Clould would think he might be in love with Aerith is because he’s falsely assuming of the memories of a man who did love Aerith — Zack.

For Cloud’s response (”Do I get a say in all this?”/ “That’s very one-sided” depending on the translation), rather than showing a shot of his face, the Remake shows him with his back turned.

Whatever Cloud’s feelings may be for Aerith, the game seems rather indifferent to them.

What is more telling is the choice to include a bit with Cloud getting jealous over a guy trying to give Tifa flowers in Barret’s resolution. Barret also mentions both Jessie and Aerith in their conversation, but nothing else gets such a reaction from Cloud.

It also should go without saying that if Aerith’s resolution is meant to establish Cloud and Aerith’s romance, there should have been plenty of set-up beforehand and plenty of follow-through afterward. That obviously is not the case, because again, the Remake has gone out of its way to avoid moments where Cloud’s actions towards Aerith could be interpreted romantically.

Case in point, at around this time in the OG, Marlene tells Cloud that she thinks Aerith likes him and the player has the option to have Cloud express his hope that she does. This scene is completely eliminated from the Remake and replaced with a much more appropriate scene of father-daughter affection between Marlene and Barret while Tifa and Cloud are standing together outside.

The method by which they get up the plate is completely different in the Remake. Leslie is the one who helps them this time around, and though his quest to reunite with his fiance directly parallels with the trio’s desire to save Aerith, Leslie himself draws a comparison to earlier when Cloud was trying to rescue Tifa. Finally, when Abzu is defeated again, it is Barret who draws the parallel of their search for Aerith to Leslie’s search for his fiance, making it crystal clear that saving Aerith is a group effort rather than only Cloud’s.

Speaking of Barret, in the OG, he seems to reassess his opinion of Cloud in the Shinra HQ stairs when he sees Cloud working so hard to save Aerith and realizes he might actually care about other people. In the Remake, that reevaluation occurs after you complete all the Ch. 14 sidequests and help a bunch of NPCs. Arguably, this moment occurs even earlier in the Remake for Barret, after the Airbuster, when he realizes that Cloud is more concerned for his and Tifa’s safety than his own.

Overall, the entire Aerith rescue feels so anticlimactic in the Remake. In the OG, Cloud gets his big hero moment in the Shinra Building. He’s the one who runs up to Aerith when the glass shatters and they finally reunite. In the Remake, it’s unclear what the emotional stakes are for Cloud here. At their big reunion, all we get from him is a “Yep.” In fact, when you look at how this scene plays out, Aerith is positioned equally between Cloud and Tifa at the moment of her rescue. Cloud’s answer is again with his back turned to the camera. It’s Tifa who gets her own shot with her response.

Another instance of the Remake being completely indifferent to Cloud’s feelings for Aerith, and actually priotizing Tifa’s relationship with Aerith instead.

It is also Tifa who runs to reunite with Aerith after the group of enemies is defeated. Another moment that could have easily been Cloud’s that the Remake gives to Tifa.

Also completely eliminated in the Remake, is the “I’m your bodyguard. / The deal was for one date” exchange in the jail cells. In the Remake, after Ch. 8, the date isn’t brought up again at all; “the bodyguard” reference only comes up briefly in Ch. 11 and then never again.

In the Remake, the jail scene is replaced by the scene in Aerith’s childhood room. Despite the fact that this is Aerith’s room, it is Tifa’s face that Cloud first sees when he wakes. What purpose does this moment serve other than to showcase Cloud and Tifa’s intimacy and the other characters’ tacit acknowledgment of said intimacy?

(This is the second time where Cloud wakes up and Tifa is the first thing he sees. The other was at Corneo’s mansion. He comes to three times in the Remake, but in Ch. 8, even though Aerith is right in front of him, we start off with a few seconds of Cloud gazing around the church before settling on the person in front of him. Again, while not something that most players would notice, this feels like a deliberate choice.)

Especially since this scene itself is all about Aerith. She begins a sad story about her past, and Cloud, rather than trying to comfort her in any way, asks her to give us some exposition about the Ancients. When the Whispers surround her, even though Cloud is literally right there, it's Tifa who pulls her out of it and comforts her. Another moment that could have been Cloud that was given to Tifa, and honestly, this one feels almost bizarre.

Throughout the entire Shinra HQ episode, Cloud and Aerith haven’t had a single moment alone to themselves. The Drums scenario is completely invented for the Remake. The devs could have contrived a way for Cloud and Aerith to have some one-on-one time here and work through the feelings they expressed during Aerith’s resolution if they wanted. Instead, with the mandatory party configurations during this stage - Cloud & Barret on one side; Tifa & Aerith on the others, with Cloud & Tifa being the respective team leaders communicating over PHS, the Remake minimizes the amount of interaction Cloud and Aerith have with each other in this chapter.

On the rooftop, before Cloud’s solo fight with Rufus, even though Cloud is ostensibly doing all this so that they can bring Aerith to safety, the Remake doesn’t include a single shot that focuses on Aerith’s face and her reaction to his actions. The game has decided, whatever Aerith’s feelings are in this moment, they’re irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell. Instead we get shots focusing solely on Barret and Tifa. While the Remake couldn’t find any time to develop Cloud and Aerith’s relationship at the Shinra Tower (even though the OG certainly did), it did find time to add a new scene where Tifa saves Cloud from certain death, while referencing their Promise.

A lot of weird shit happens after this, but it’s pretty much all plot and no character. We do get one more moment where Cloud saves Tifa (and Tifa alone) from the Red Whisper even though Aerith is literally right next to her. The Remake isn’t playing coy at all about where Cloud’s preferences lie.

The party order for the Sephiroth battle varies depending on how you fought the Whispers. All the other character entrances (whoever the 3rd party member is, then the 4th and Red) are essentially the exact same shots, with the characters replaced. It’s the first character entrance (which can only be Aerith or  Tifa) that you have two distinct options.

If Aerith is first, the camera pans from Cloud over to Aerith. It then cuts back to Cloud’s reaction, in a separate shot, as Aerith walks to join him (offscreen). It’s only when the player regains control of the characters that Cloud and Aerith ever share the frame.

On the other hand, if Tifa is first, we see Tifa land from Cloud’s POV. Cloud then walks over to join Tifa and they immediately share a frame, facing Sephiroth together.

Again, this is not something SE would expect the player to notice the first or even second time around. Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice at all unless they watched all these variations back to back. That is telling in itself, that SE would go through all this effort (making these scenes unique rather than copy and pasting certainly takes more time and effort) to ensure that the depictions of Cloud’s relationships with these two women are distinct despite the fact that hardly anyone would notice. Even in the very last chapter of the game, they want us to see Cloud and Tifa as a pair and Cloud and Aerith as individuals.

Which isn’t to say that Aerith is being neglected in the Remake. Quite the opposite, in fact, when she has essentially become the main protagonist and the group’s spirtual leader in Ch. 18. Rather, her relationship with Cloud is no longer an essential part of her character. Not to mention, one of the very last shots of the Remake is about Aerith sensing Zack’s presence. Again, not the kind of thing you want to bring up if the game is supposed to show her being in love with Cloud.

What does it all mean????

Phew — now let’s step back and look and how the totality of these changes have reshaped our understanding of the story as a whole. Looking solely at the Midgar section of the OG, and ignoring everything that comes after it, it seems to tell a pretty straightforward story: Cloud is a cold-hearted jerk who doesn’t care about anyone else until he meets Aerith. It is through his relationship with Aerith that he begins to soften up and starts giving a damn about something other than himself. This culminates when he risks it all to rescue Aerith from the clutches of the game’s Big Bad itself, The Shinra Electric Company.

This was honestly the reason why I was dreading the Remake when I learned that it would only cover the Midgar segment. A game that’s merely an expansion of the Midgar section of the OG is probably going to leave a lot of people believing that Cloud & Aerith were the intended couple, and I didn’t want to wait years and perhaps decades for vindication after the Remake’s Lifestream Scene.

I imagine this very scenario is what motivated SE to make so many of these changes. In the OG, they could get away with misdirecting the audience for the first few hours of the game since the rest of the story and the reveals were already completed. The player merely had to pop in the next disc to get the real story. Such is not the case with the Remake. Had the the Remake followed the OG’s beats more closely, many players, including some who’ve never played the OG, would finish the Remake thinking that Cloud and Aerith were the intended couple. It would be years until they got the rest of the story, and at that point, the truth would feel much more like a betrayal. Like they’ve been cruelly strung along.

While they’ve gone out of their way to adapt most elements from the OG into the Remake, they’ve straight up eliminated many scenes that could be interpreted as Cloud’s romantic interest in Aerith. Instead, he seems much more interested in her knowledge as an Ancient than in her romantic affections. This is the path the Remake could be taking. Instead of Cloud being under the illusion of falling in love with Aerith, he’s under the illusion that the answer to his identity dilemma lies in Aerith’s Cetra heritage, when, of course, the answer was with Tifa all along.

Hiding Sephiroth’s existence during the Midgar arc isn’t necessary to telling the story of FF7, thus it’s been eliminated in the Remake. Similarly, pretending that Cloud and Aerith are going to end up together also isn’t necessary and would only confuse the player. Thus the LTD is no longer a part of the Remake.

If Aerith’s impact on Cloud has been diminished, what then is his arc in the Remake? Is it essentially just the same without the catalyst of Aerith? A cold guy at the start who eventually learns to care about others through the course of the game? Kind of, though arguably, this is who Remake!Cloud is all along, not just Cloud at the end of the Remake. Cloud is a guy who pretends to be a selfish jerk, but he deep down he really does care. He just doesn’t show this side of himself around people he’s unfamiliar with. So part of his arc in the Remake is opening up to the others, Barret, AVALANCHE and Aerith included, but these all span a chapter or two at most. They don’t straddle the entire game.

What is the throughline then? What is an area in which he exhibits continuous growth?

It’s Tifa. It’s his desire to fulfill his Promise to Tifa. Not just to protect her physically, but to be there for her emotionally, something that’s much harder to do. There’s the big moments like when he remembers the Promise in Ch. 4., his dramatic fist clench when he can’t stop Tifa from crying in Ch. 12, and in Ch. 13 when he watches Barret comfort Tifa. It’s all the flashbacks he has of her and the times he’s felt like he failed her. It’s the smaller moments where he can sense her nervousness and unease but the only thing he knows how to do is call her name. It’s all those times during battle, where Tifa can probably take care of herself, but Cloud has to save her because he can’t fail her again. All of this culminates in Tifa’s Resolution, where Tifa is in desperate need of comfort, and is specifically seeking Cloud’s comfort, and Cloud has no idea what to do. He hesitates because he’s clueless, because he doesn’t want to fuck it up, but finally, he makes the choice, he takes the risk, and he hugs her….and he kind of fucks it up. He hugs her too hard. Which is a great thing, because this arc isn’t anywhere close to being over. There’s still so much more to come. So many places this relationship will go.

We get a little preview of this when Tifa saves Cloud on the roof. Everything we thought we knew about their relationship has been flipped on its head. Tifa is the one saving Cloud here, near the end of this part of the Remake. Just as she will save Cloud in the Lifestream just before the end of the FF7 story as a whole. What does Tifa mean to Cloud? It’s one of the first questions posed in the Remake, and by the end, it remains unanswered.

Cloud’s character arc throughout the entire FF7 story is about his reconciling with his identity issues. This continues to develop through the Shinra Tower Chapters, but it certainly isn’t going to be resolved in Part 1 of the Remake. His character arc in the Remake — caring more about others/finding a way to finally comfort Tifa — is resolved in Ch. 14, well before rescuing Aerith, which is what makes her rescue feel so anticlimactic. The resolution of this external conflict isn’t tied to the protagonist’s emotional arc. This was not the case in the OG. I’m certainly not complaining about the change, but the Remake probably would have felt more satisfying as a whole if they hewed to the structure of the OG. Instead, it seems that SE has prioritized the clarity of the Remake series as a whole (leaving no doubt about where Cloud’s affections lie) over the effectiveness of the “climax” in the first entry of the Remake.

This is all clear if you only focus on the “story” of the Remake -- i.e., what the characters are saying and doing. If you extend your lens to the presentation of said story, and here I’m talking about who the game chooses to focus on during the scenes, how long they hold on these shots, which characters share the frame, which do not, etc --- it really could not be more obvious.

Does the camera need to linger for over 5 seconds on Cloud staring at the door after wishing Tifa goodnight? Does it need to find Cloud almost every time Tifa says or does anything so that we’re always aware of his watchfulness and the nature of his care? The answer is no until you realize this dynamic is integral to telling the story of Final Fantasy VII.

I don’t see how anyone who compares the Remake to the OG could come away from it thinking that the Remake series is going to reverse all of the work done in the OG and Compilation by having Cloud end up with Aerith.

Just because the ending seems to indicate that the events of the OG might not be set in stone, it doesn’t mean that the Remake will end with Aerith surviving and living happily ever after with Cloud. Even if Aerith does live (which again seems unlikely given the heavy foreshadowing of her death in the Remake), how do you come away from the Remake thinking that Cloud is going to choose Aerith over Tifa when SE has gone out of its way to remove scenes between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic? And gone out of its way to shove Cloud’s feelings for Tifa in the player’s face? The sequels would have to spend an obscene amount of time not only building Cloud and Aerith’s relationship from scratch, but also dismantling Cloud’s relationship with Tifa. It would be an absolute waste of time and resources, and there’s really no way to do so without making the characters look like assholes in the process.

Now could this happen? Sure, in the sense that literally anything could happen in the future. But in terms of outcomes that would make sense based on what’s come before, this particular scenario is about as plausible as Cloud deciding to relinquish his quest to find Sephiroth so that he can pursue his real dream of becoming at sandwich artist at Panera Bread.

It’s over! I promise!

Like you, I too cannot believe the number of words I’ve wasted on this subject. What is there left to say? The LTD doesn’t exist outside of the first disc of the OG. You'll only find evidence of SE perpetuating the LTD if you go into these stories with the assumption that 1) The LTD exists 2) it remains unanswered. But it’s not. We know that Cloud ends up with Tifa.

What the LTD has become is dissecting individual scenes and lines of dialogue, without considering the context of said things, and pretending as if the outcome is unknown and unknowable. If you took this tact to other aspects of FF7’s story, then it would be someone arguing that because there a number of scenes in the OG that seem to suggest that Meteor will successfully destroy the planet, this means that the question of whether or not our heroes save the world in the end is left ambiguous. No one does that because that would be utterly absurd. Individual moments in a story may suggest alternate outcomes to build tension, to keep us on our toes, but that doesn’t change the ending from being the ending. Our heroes stop Meteor. Cloud loves Tifa. Arguments against either should be treated with the same level of credulity (i.e., none).

It’s frustrating that the LTD, and insecurities about whether or not Cloud really loves Tifa, takes up so much oxygen in any discussion about these characters. And it’s a damn shame, because Cloud and Tifa’s relationship is so rich and expansive, and the so-called “LTD” is such a tiny sliver of that relationship, and one of the least interesting aspects. They’re wonderful because they’re just so damn normal. Unlike other Final Fantasy couples, what keeps them apart is not space and time and death, but the most human and painfully relatable emotion of all, fear. Fear that they can’t live up to the other’s expectations; fear that they might say the wrong thing. The fear that keeps them from admitting their feelings at the Water Tower, they’re finally able to overcome 7 years later in the Lifestream. They’re childhood friends but in a way they’re also strangers. Like other FF couples, we’re able to watch their entire relationship grow and unfold before our eyes. But they have such a history too, a history that we unravel with them at the same time. Every moment of their lives that SE has found worth depicting, they’ve been there for each other, even if they didn’t know it at the time. Theirs is a story that begins and ends with each other. Their is the story that makes Final Fantasy VII what it is.

If you’ve made it this far, many thanks for reading. I truly have no idea how to use this platform, so please direct any and all hatemail to my DMs at TLS, which I will then direct to the trash. (In all seriousness, I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you may have, but I feel like I’ve more than said my piece here.)

If there’s one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s to learn to ignore all the ridiculous arguments out there, and just enjoy the story that’s actually being told. It’s a good one.

[not-xpr-art]

Art Advice #4 - A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Art

Hi all!

This weeks entry into my Art Advice tag, where I offer various advice for artists of any skill level, is about digital art! Now, I am by no means an expert at digital (I’ve been doing it for nearly 8 years at this point and that is almost entirely self taught), but I have picked up a few pointers in that time which will hopefully help anyone just starting out!

(this blogpost is a little over 2000 words long btw)

A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Art 

I know that the world of digital art has changed drastically in the 8 odd years since I started, but I’d still say that some of the options I started out with will be just as good for anyone who’s starting out now! 

As always, I’ll be splitting this into sections to make it easier for you to navigate this post!

Part 1 - Equipment/Hardware 

There are a lot of drawing tablet options on the market at the moment, and I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about half of them lol. But I think for a beginner, don’t worry about going for the most expensive option, even if the reviews are really good or your favourite artist uses it, especially if it is way above your budget! 

An important thing to know is that there are two types of tablet. One is the plug-in kind. These are essentially a pad which you plug into your laptop or computer and draw on that whilst looking at the screen (they basically work the same way as a plug in mouse works). The other kind is the screen variety, which is a lot more like what most of us know as ‘tablets’ nowadays. And you draw directly onto the screen. 

(a plug-in vs on screen tablet, both from Wacom)

Now, as for choosing between these, it is honestly a personal choice. But I’d say if you’re just wanting to try digital and you’re on a budget, a plug-in tablet can be really useful since it gets you used to the mechanics of what digital is like, and they are often significantly cheaper than the screen alternatives. I would say that plug-in tablets are a big learning curve, especially if you’re used to doing traditional stuff, but I do know a lot of professional artists who still use this kind of tablet when doing their work, so if it’s something you can get used to I would definitely consider it! Also, they’re often a lot more portable than some screen tablets! The first one I had was a Huion (a model so old that I can’t even find a link to it now lol), and I also know that Wacom are a well known brand that do some decent plug-in tablet. I’d recommend you do your own research on other brands and options, though!

Screen tablets are often a lot more expensive, but if you’re used to traditional art, they are a lot easier to get a handle of! But I know if you already have something like an iPad, or other general use tablets, then they offer apps that you can use to draw on (as well as things like the Apple pen, or other stylus’). The big difference between using these general tablets and ones specifically designed for drawing is pretty much purely a personal choice. I personally prefer the bigger screen of my XP-Pen tablet, along with a special screen protector that removes the shininess of the tablet screen and makes it feel more like ‘paper’ over when I used a general use tablet it draw. But if you already have an iPad, or something similar, then it’s honestly a really great starting point!

I think it’s important for me to mention that you don’t need fancy equipment to be an artist. The incredible Elicia Donze has revealed countless times how she has very basic equipment but still manages to produce the most stunning artworks! All you really need is some kind of drawing apparatus and a lot of patience lol! Getting good at any kind of art takes a lot of time and effort, but I would definitely say it’s worth it when you’re able to look back at your progress!

Part 2 - Software/Drawing Programs 

Much like with the hardware discussion, choosing which program to use is entirely down to personal preference. I personally have never really liked Photoshop purely because it’s really complicated, but I know so many artists swear by it. 

I think the main aspect to consider when you’re starting out is whether you want to pay for a program. Software like Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint and Procreate are some of the popular ones I hear about a lot of people using, but all require you to purchase or subscribe to them. So if you’re young or on a very tight budget, I’d honestly recommend the free alternative versions of these, such as Krita (Krita is quite a large program, but it has a lot of really awesome features and is very similar to Photoshop!), Gimp (this one is similar to Krita, but has slightly less options, I’d honestly recommend Gimp for anyone who does photo editing though!) or FireAlpaca (this is the one I use, by the way and it’s a pretty simple program, but has a lot of fantastic features and is perfect for how I work!). These don’t have as many features as some of the paid alternatives, but I honestly think all you really need to start digital art is some kind of ‘canvas’ and set of brushes!

Another great free program for beginners I’d recommend is MyPaint, which is great for doodling and just getting used to how digital art feels in comparison to traditional! It also has a bunch of ‘traditional style’ brushes, to make it look like charcoal or watercolour (which I’m sure the paid alternatives have too, but it’s always better when it’s free, I find lol...)

(this is an example of a drawing I did on MyPaint using the ‘charcoal’ effect brush!)

Most of the sites are pretty self explanatory, with sections dedicated to different brushes (I’ll go into the types of brushes later on in this post btw!), adjusting brush size, shape and opacity, a colour wheel, etc. You also have a section dedicated to ‘layers’ (another thing I’ll go into more detail later), and various ‘filters’ and editing options and effects you can add to your work to make it more interesting!

I’d really just recommend playing around with programs until you find your one!

Part 3 - The Pros of Digital Art!

I realise this section should probably earlier in this blog post lol, but I kinda wanted to go into what digital art can achieve in comparison to traditional art, and how beginner artists can utilise this!

I definitely didn’t take advantage of certain aspects of digital art when I first got into it, and they’re things that would have definitely made my life a whole lot easier lol!

Digital art allows you to tweak drawings as you do them. So if you accidentally drew the eye too far to the right, then you can easily move it to the right place. (I usually do this by selecting whichever area is wrong, cutting it out and then pasting it into a new area... And yes, there is probably a better and quick way of doing this but...I haven’t found that way yet lol...). And I honestly think that this has allowed me to look a lot more at a reference image in order to figure out where I’ve gone wrong with a drawing! Whereas with traditional art, I usually spend so long trying to get an eye right, that even if it’s slightly in the wrong place, I don’t want to completely redo that section. Digital allows you to completely rub out sections without leaving indents, which is honestly such a saving grace!

Another pro of digital is the Undo/Ctrl Z function! This means you can easily go back to before you made a major mistake with just a click of Ctrl Z... Though I have to say that this function has honestly ruined traditional art for me... Oh what wouldn’t I give for a real life Ctrl Z... But yeah, this is a great part of digital art and definitely something you will grow to love lol!

Another great thing about digital is that it allows you to flip and turn a canvas as you’re drawing on it. I spent a lot of time trying to turn my tablet around in order to draw certain parts of a piece before I realised you can turn the canvas itself without having to move yourself or your tablet!

Layers are another part of digital that can be super useful, and I have to be honest but I don’t really use them a lot. I know a lot of artists create layers for every section of their artworks (so, one for the linework, one for colouring, a separate one for the background, etc etc...). And there’s something really great about being able to paint without worrying about smudging into a previous section of the painting. This works well for my work since I do a lot of bright backgrounds. I also often create a lot of ‘versions’ of my works, so it’s useful to be able to change the background without affecting the main figure of the piece! (I have to say that I often work in one big layer when I’m doing paintings, just because I like how it feels more like ‘traditional’ art that way, but layers are such a brilliant tool, and definitely something you should play around with!)

The eyedropper tool is another one that is really useful! Although I never colour pick from my reference photos, I know some artists find this useful when they were just starting out (especially if you’re not sure what colour to make shadows or how to mix skin tones, etc etc). The eyedropper basically means you don’t need to mix your colours every time

Part 4 - Just some other things I wish I had known about when I was starting out lol...

This last section is just dedicated to a few things that I would have liked to have known when I was just starting out all those years ago. 

First one is fluffy/textured brushes! 

I spent most of my art life from 2013 until 2016 using ‘round’ brushes which are notoriously hard to blend with, so I’d recommend either downloading some fluffy/textured brushes (DeviantArt was where I got mine from a few years back, but there are probably other places you can get them for free too!) to your program of choice, since most of the programs I’ve used haven’t had fluffy/textured brushes as pre-set. 

I may make another post about how I blend in my artworks if that’s something people would be interested in?

(this is an example of textured brush blending vs round brush blending... I usually opt for round brushes for rougher blending styles and the textured brushes for more smooth and ‘realistic’ blending... for a lot of pieces, though, I use both brushes (the round brushes are good for details!) in the same way that you use different sized brushes for real paintings!)

The next thing I wish I’d discovered earlier is the Brush Stabiliser option. Some programs may do this automatically, but the one I use (FireAlpaca) requires you to manually change the amount of stabilising you have on your brush. This is particularly useful if you want to draw neat lines or straight lines (the stabiliser essentially slows down the ‘ink’ as you’re drawing). I only recently started using the stabiliser, and although I still like having it mostly turned ‘off’ for doing sketchy work, it does make doing line work a lot easier, and also gives pieces a more polished look!  

Next advice is to explore all the options you can in whatever program you use! 

I feel like with certain programs, you can get overwhelmed by choice and you end up just using a few of the functions. But I’d really recommend just playing around with these programs, trying all the filters and editing options to get used to how the program works. You can often find interesting ways to adjust your artworks this way! In a way I’d recommend this way of working more than finding tutorials made by other people... Unless there’s a specific function you want to learn how to do, just having fun with digital art is a major part of it’s appeal to me! 

~

There are probably a lot of other options I could go into, but this is already over 2000 words long, so I’ll leave it here for now lol! (I may do a part 2 though so... keep a look out for that!)

As always, if you have any questions to things I’ve said here, or are just looking for more advice, don’t hesitate to message me!

And if you like my work on here (art & blog posts) feel free to support me on my Ko-Fi! <3

[sobsicles]

Opening Line Tag Game

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

I was tagged by @dont-offend-the-bees - thanks! ill just do my spn fics and not any ive co-written because i didn't start the first chapters for those, though they're very good (Season Z and The Bad Santa Clause, respectively, that are fics written by a group of many amazing authors!)

Dean starts falling in love with him on a slow Sunday morning under slanted sunlight that slips through the gaps in the trees. — six hundred sundays (and many more)

Why did the curtains have to be yellow? — i want to do with you (what spring does to cherry trees)

In a bar on a Tuesday morning, it's a few months out from the final shot at the world ending. But hey, Chuck's long gone, and everything has worked out for the best, and the world keeps right on turning. Funny how that goes, huh? — dumbassery, denial, doing (the three d's to the destination)

There are certain moments in one's life when things go exactly as planned. It's like the stars align and the skies open up to reveal rays of sunlight and, against all odds, everything seems to be in perfect harmony. This is a phenomenon that Dean is genuinely not accustomed to, as it doesn't really happen for him. — finding hope (and finding him)

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment. — break the skin (to break the barriers)

The first time Dean and Cas kiss, it's not even really a kiss at all. It is, in fact, mouth-to-mouth. — a kiss for every season (literally)

The brass chip slides back and forth in a small path across the leaning desk Bobby has had for years and still hasn't gotten around to fixing. The chip reads: To thine own self be true. Unity. Service. Recovery. — separate ways and sleeping dogs

Getting used to Heaven is something of a marvel. It ain't perfect, and Dean thinks he'd hate it if it was, which is probably why it isn't. There's just enough human-esque nuances to it that keep it feeling like life rather than death, and he's thankful for that because he's got the smallest inkling that he should have gotten to live a little longer than he did. — oh sooner or later it all comes down to faith

So, the first thing that happens is Castiel comes back. It's at a pretty inconvenient time, considering the amount of pain Dean is in and how close he is to being dead. — things happen (they do, and they do, and they do)

It's not the first time Claire has ever gone missing. It is, however, the first time Kaia panics about it. — what's missing is found (our souls can exhale now)

It's different now, no matter how much they're pretending it's not. Mostly out of self-preservation, because sometimes their sanity is hanging by a mere thread and it's so obvious that they simply have no choice but to fake it 'til they make it. They've done a lot of that through the years, practically crafted it into a fine art, but this is the best performance yet. — according to all known laws of life

Time is different here. — what they deserve (it's better this way)

The first realization he remembers having is that the stars are oddly bright from where he lies sprawled on his back. The second, of course, is that there are troubling sounds coming from some vague point to his left. He supposes that's fair—vision and auditory processes are usually the first thing people make sense of when they wake. He knows that much, at least. Not much else, though. — Memories Bring Back Memories (Bring Back You)

Dean would think that a failsafe like this wouldn't exist. It doesn't quite add up in his head when he sits down and thinks about it, but Sam assures him over and over that it's well within the realm of possibility for the Men of Letters--supposed smart people--to come up with something as stupid as this. — home is where the heart is (and you have mine)

The blackbirds start singing a dawn. — profoundly bonded (by law)

So. So, the thing about desperation, and want, and desire, and how it controls, is that it's all bullshit, and Dean wants absolutely no part in it. — staring at ceiling in the dark, same empty feeling in your heart (love comes slow and it goes so fast)

Cas wasn't a music fanatic of any kind, Dean knew this firsthand. Sure, he listened to whatever Dean was listening to, or whatever was playing in the car on long trips. But he never went out of his way to listen to music in his spare time. — listen to the song in my soul (only you can hear)

All things considered, Castiel found solace in the fact that his life couldn't get any worse than this. — Just A Touch

There were a few things that were known about Dean Winchester, undeniable things that hadn't wavered once in his entire life. — a helping hand (let's not be friends)

Dean was merely ten years old when he discovered that bridges didn't close the gap between two worlds. — The Bridges We Built

insane to me that none of these opened up on dialogue. i don't open up with dialogue that often, as it turns out. also, most of these fics are dean pov. only three of these out of twenty are cas pov (1, 12, 18). my personal five favorites out of these: 3, 5, 10, 14, 15.

im supposed to tag people, but like, i want anyone who wants to do it to do it! if you see this and want to do it, definitely do so! tag me if you do; i'd love to see your answers!